Future-proofing telescope archives: perspectives on sustainability

Telescope archives are often perceived as static entities that store stale observations. In this talk we reimagine the humble telescope archive as a dynamic and resilient entity capable of responding to the rapidly evolving operational challenges facing observatories. Apart from the environmental spectres of climate change and pandemics, key challenges include coordinating multi-telescope observations of the imminent deluge of transients and facilitating equitable access to reduced science-ready data products. Addressing all of these challenges requires the adoption of a sustainability mindset and embedding novel software components within the telescope archive. The latter should include a Pipeline As a Web Service (PAWS) to enable on demand reduction of archival data, but other components could interact with transient brokers and telescope schedulers. We introduce measures that could help transform telescope archives into active participants of a sustainable observatory ecosystem.