iPRES 2024 from afar - some takeaways

So here we are…the day after another amazing iPRES conference and I find myself running through my notes and trying to process the incredible amount of knowledge and experience that has been shared in such a short period.

iPRES was a virtual conference for me this year. I love this conference and most of all I love the face-to-face interactions with the digital preservation community, but it was hard to make the logistics work in order to attend in person this time around. Despite having a serious case of FOMO (especially when conference delegates headed off on a boat to the conference dinner) the virtual conference experience was a good one for me. I kind of got used to the 8:00am start (and the dog was very happy with the early pre-conference walks).

Yes, I missed out on the face-to-face interactions, but I really enjoyed the chats on Mastodon. There was a decent sized group of us on there 'tooting' with the #ipres2024 hashtag and we made enough noise that others (not at the conference) started to take notice. One Mastodon user saying “This might be the first time I feel a library-related conference has been adequately hashtagged on Mastodon and it's just a nice, nice, nice feeling.” If you are interested in joining the digipres community on Mastodon, do take a look at Andy Jackson’s blog post.

So I’m trying to digest 39 pages of my own notes, and also trying to consider what other sessions and papers I need to watch or read back. I also have some actions and follow ups to do as a result of things that I learned. I think I need another week at least to process all of this!

If you are also struggling to prioritise the huge wealth of information that has been shared, perhaps you will find the following helpful. I’ve tried to list just some of my highlights from the 3 days. Absolutely not an exhaustive list, but if it signposts you to some useful content that you missed, then it is doing its job!

(First some apologies: This is a hastily written blog post! I included the name of the speakers for these presentations but realise I have missed off the many co-authors. For the papers themselves I have linked through to the published papers on the iPRES 2024 website so that you can dive straight in and read them (and see the full lists of co-authors), for the posters, panels and lightning talks I wasn't sure where to link to. Note that for iPRES attendees, all the presentations, posters etc should be available on the app.)

File Fixity in the Cloud: Policy, Business, and Technical Considerations - Kyle Rimkus - This was a really helpful case study. In particular it was good to hear how the University of Illinois found the balance between maintaining control, trusting the vendor and managing costs. One observation Kyle made at the end was about how best practices are continuing to evolve and haven't settled yet. This is indeed one of the reasons why I prefer to talk about Good Practice - Kyle’s case study certainly provides an excellent example of this.

Digital preservation in the cloud? - this was a panel session that followed neatly on from Kyle’s presentation. Panelists Eld Zierau (KBDK), Jeffrey van der Hoeven (KBNL), Micky Lindlar (TIB), Erik Borglund (Mid Sweden University), Andrea Goethals (NLNZ) and Steve Daly (TNA) were expertly led by Neil Grindley (Jisc) and a number of different aspects of preservation in the cloud were discussed. Given there is no one-size-fits-all approach, it was really beneficial to hear from a range of different organizations on their practices and approach with regard to the cloud. Panelists discussed risks, costs, trust, skills and future directions and it was a really engaging session.

Keeping users informed: using content advisories and emphasizing the person when disseminating archives with human remains - Teagan Zoldoske - this was really informative lightning talk describing how the Archaeology Data Service are moving forward with a methodology for including content advisories on their web interfaces - specifically to highlight the presence of images showing human remains. It was a nice case study and was really clear and informative.

Cloudy Data With a Chance of Transfer: Towards SharePoint Transfer at UK Parliament - Emily Chen - a great case study from the UK Parliament, this presentation described progress in the preservation of records from SharePoint. Given this is a problem that so many others are grappling with, it was great to hear such a clear and informative presentation on the topic. Emily noted that the progress they made was dependent on a well established culture of information governance and collaboration across the organization. This was a really takeaway message for me - that a challenge like this is as much about the policy and organizational culture as the technology.

Traveling Light: a carry-on of essentials for development of Cornell's digital preservation program - Dianne Dietrich - I really loved the approach described in this presentation. The paper was about building digital preservation workflows, but Dianne stressed how they refused to build a system and make people adapt to fit it - instead they took a human-centered approach, making practice the thing that drove the technology, rather than the other way around. She also emphasized the conversations and collaboration needed and the gains that were made as a result. Great stuff!

A Condition Assessment Model for Multi-variant Net Artworks - Nicole Savoy - another fabulous case study, this time from one of the student finalists from this year’s Digital Preservation Awards. In this paper Nicole describes a methodology for assessing the condition of net artworks. A paper like this really brings home the sheer complexity of some of the digital content we are charged with preserving - so many challenges here! 

Getting Started with Digital Preservation: Practical Advice and Embracing “Good Enough” - Marcella Lees - This poster (and short presentation in the remote speakers 'Start to Preserve' track) gives a really honest and pragmatic example of moving forward with digital preservation from scratch when many things seem to be stacked against you. I particularly liked the advice she shared at the end of her presentation - take deep breaths, it will take time, doing something is better than nothing, be realistic about how much you can accomplish, it is OK to compromise on best practice sometimes and lastly, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Hear hear!

‘Good old Internet: it's not just there for the serious things in life!’: a digital forensics workflow on-the-fly to preserve the history of technology in higher education through University of Edinburgh BITs newsletter (1994-2019) - Sara Day Thompson - This was a great presentation which described a case study to preserve a university ICT bulletin/magazine. So much to learn from this informative talk, but my key takeaways were around the importance of collaboration and the ways that this project was able to raise the profile of digital preservation across the university. It also ended with some honest reflection around the need to start thinking about scalable solutions to the digital preservation challenge - fabulous though this project was, the size of the wider challenge can’t be tackled with small projects and student interns.

When Software was Sound: Exploring the forensic materiality and evidence of manufacture of microcomputer software recorded on cassette - Michael Borthwick - I didn’t catch all of this presentation (early morning dog walk overran) so need to go back and watch it again from the start. From what I saw, it was a really engaging paper about the materiality of cassette tapes and really well delivered. Michael noted that we may be willfully destroying evidence and traces of our past if we destroy carriers like this.

The flux and rhythm of community: A case study on building and maintaining a community of practice - Jaye Weatherburn - This paper about communities used Australasia Preserves as its case study. I hadn't realised that Australasia Preserves had been going that long...time flies! New to me was some of the theory behind communities of practice/interest which I found really helpful.

“You oughta be in pictures”: Insights to Digital Moving Image Preservation from the BFI, EYE, and LOC - this was a panel session about moving image preservation with Anne Gant (EYE), Lucy Wales (British Film Institute) and Laura Drake Davis (Library of Congress) and there was some really great discussion about how each of these organizations tackles the preservation of born digital moving image. This is a topic I don’t know a huge amount about so I really felt I learned something. I was also gratified to find out that Bridgerton on Netflix is being preserved for future generations!

Energy, Digital Preservation, and the Climate: Proactively Planning for an Uncertain Future - Sibyl Schaefer - This was, for me, the most powerful talk of the conference. It was quite hard listening at times, but I’m so grateful to Sibyl for bringing this talk on the climate crisis to iPRES - we need to be talking about, and planning for, this uncertain future more (the DPC does have an event on this topic in November). I really appreciated all the research that went into this paper as well as the decision making methodologies and frameworks that Sibyl shared that we could use to help us with planning in uncertain times. I need to revisit this for sure but strongly recommend you watch it back if you are able!

The Future of Preservation: Reinventing the Repository at Harvard - Stephen Abrams - there was lots of information in this presentation and it provided a nice follow up to the paper he gave at iPRES last year. As this project to reinvent the digital repository at Harvard moves forward, Stephen described their innovative approach to the challenge. There were lots of takeaways for me but overall the presentation really helped emphasise the size of an undertaking like this and the numbers of people who need to be involved. There were some great recommendations shared at the end of the presentation - Stephen encouraged us to set the highest possible goals, spend time working on positive team dynamics and allow generous amounts of time for project completion.

Of course I also enjoyed the keynotes and took some time to dive into the fantastic Digital Preservation Bake Off session too. All in all, iPRES 2024 was an intense, but incredibly useful few days of talks and I feel like I barely scratched the surface. I need to block out some time next week to do more watching and reading for sure. I’m keen to read some of the papers mentioned above and already have a shortlist of other presentations that I would like to watch (based on recommendations from other attendees).

Do please feel free to add to my watch list by sharing your recommendations in the comments!

Thank you iPRES 2024!