Andrea Goethals is Manager, Digital Preservation and Data Capability at Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa National Library of New Zealand, and Conference Chair for iPRES 2025 in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. Valerie Love is Senior Digital Archivist and Acting Digital Collections Team Leader at the Alexander Turnbull Library, the Archives and Special Collections for Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa National Library of New Zealand. They are one of the Co-Chairs for iPRES 2025.
Nau mai, haere mai and hello from Aotearoa New Zealand, the first place in the world to see the sun. We could not be more delighted to kick off World Digital Preservation Day 2024! This year’s theme, Preserving Our Digital Content: Celebrating Communities feels particularly relevant in the lead up to iPRES 2025, which will be held in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.
As part of our preparation, we’ll be hosting a series of ‘Call to Community’ online workshops over the coming months to gather your ideas on what the ideal iPRES conference experience could look like. These workshops will be a chance for the digital preservation community to shape the conference's focus and activities together, ensuring it reflects the community's evolving needs and aspirations. We can’t wait to hear from you!
The Wellington digital preservation community, including staff from Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa National Library of New Zealand; Te Rua Mahara o Kāwanatanga Archives New Zealand; Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision, and Te Papa Tongarewa National Museum of New Zealand. Photograph by Valerie Love.
Digital preservation is a global challenge that thrives on collaboration and the exchange of ideas. Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa National Library of New Zealand, and Te Rua Mahara o Kāwanatanga Archives New Zealand, your hosts for iPRES 2025, have long histories of active participation in the digital preservation community. Attending, presenting, and organising iPRES conferences over the years has helped us form lasting relationships, reinforcing the idea that our community itself is digital preservation’s greatest asset.
The digital preservation community in Wellington has played a key role in shaping international standards, projects, and tools, including contributions to PREMIS metadata, the Metadata Encoding & Transmission Standard (METS), the Digital Preservation Storage Criteria, the Levels of Digital Preservation, the Web Curator Tool, and the development of requirements for Rosetta.
iPRES 2025 will mark the first time this prestigious event is held in Aotearoa New Zealand, and only the second time in the southern hemisphere. We are excited to welcome you next year to experience our unique kiwi hospitality and manaakitanga (kindness, respect, and care for others).
Social Media Archiving Birds of a Feather session at iPRES 2024 in Ghent, Belgium. Photo by Valerie Love.
We know the effort and energy required to put on a successful iPRES conference and want to contribute to the global digital preservation community by taking our turn at hosting iPRES. We also see this as an important learning opportunity for Aotearoa New Zealand and Pacific organisations to have access to a gathering of international digital preservation experts locally.
For iPRES 2025, we invite you to embark on a literal and figurative journey to our corner of the world to encounter different cultures and ways of thinking. Draw inspiration from our natural surroundings, engage with Mātauranga Māori and indigenous traditions, and look at digital preservation through a different lens.
Please stay tuned for the upcoming iPRES 2025 Call for Contributions later this month, and ‘Call to Community’ workshops. Join the iPRES mailing list to stay updated, and let’s work together to make iPRES 2025 an event to remember!
Kia whakarongo ake au ki te tangi a te manu nei a te mātūī Tui! Tuituia!
I’m drawn to the call of the tūī bird telling us to unite, to bind, to come together as one.