The Tandanya Adelaide Declaration and a discussion of ethical decisions around digital preservation

The 2019 Tandanya- Adelaide Declaration describes archives as “textual armouries” and calls on public archives to reimagine themselves as “an ethical space of encounter, respect, negotiation and collaboration”. The solution for breaking down the textual armouries is often thought to be digital technologies, but the digital record has its own challenges with reciprocity and Indigenous data sovereignty. The questions of what to preserve and who should decide are as relevant for digital records as they are for textual records. This presentation will discuss how the Tandanya Declaration applies to digital preservation and how the ethics of digital preservation apply in Indigenous rights frameworks.

How should the digital preservation community address the ethical challenges arising from digital preservation and ensure that learnings are not only taken onboard but embedded within everyday practice? The session will consider a range of issues that challenge our approaches to collecting, preserving and providing access to information, from the de-colonialisation of archives, to collecting the record of divisive cultural topics, to environmental impact and the challenge of misinformation in the so-called post-truth world.

The speakers will provide their thoughts on the challenges faced by digital archivists before opening a conversation with the audience on how we not only facilitate change, but how to verify that our preservation processes meet the demands of a 21st century digital archive.

Speakers

Dr Rose Barrowcliffe, Butchulla-Wonamutta researcher and artist based on Gubbi Gubbi Country on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Macquarie University and First Nations Archives Advisor to the Queensland State Archives.

Paul Wheatley, Head of Research and Practice, Digital Preservation Coalition. Paul has over 20 years’ experience in digital preservation, including working on the seminal Cedars Project in the late 1990s, leading the Digital Preservation team at the British Library, and on the SPRUCE Project.

The session will conclude with a Q&A session with the audience and a panel including Dr Barrowcliffe, Paul Wheatley and Josephine Marsh, Acting State Archivist at the Queensland State Archives.

Registration

Registration is open to all. Places are strictly limited and should be booked in advance. Early booking is recommended as we expect this event will be popular.

If you have any questions about registration please contact Ellie O'Leary (eleanor.oleary@dpconline.org)or Robin Wright (robin.wright@dpconline.org).

DPC Inclusion & Diversity Policy

The DPC Community is guided by the values set out in our Strategic Plan and aims to be respectful, welcoming, inclusive and transparent. We encourage diversity in all its forms and are committed to being accessible to everyone who wishes to engage with the topic of digital preservation, whilst remaining technology and vendor neutral. We ask all those who are part of this community to be positive, accepting, and sensitive to the needs and feelings of others in alignment with our DPC Inclusion & Diversity Policy.