Digital preservation for an uncertain future Watch Party

Check your local time for the event here.

09:-00 – 11:00 Singapore/Perth SGT/AWST / 11:00 – 13:00 Brisbane AEST / 11:30 – 13:30 Adelaide ACDT / 12:00 – 14:00 Melb/Canb/Syd AEDT / 14:00 – 16:00 Wellington NZDT

We preserve digital content so that someone can use it in the future. But will that be next week, next year or 50 or 100 years from now? We have to make difficult decisions now but cannot test the longer-term outcomes. So, we focus on shorter-term planning cycles and measurable outcomes and consider digital preservation more of a relay race than a marathon. We make short-term decisions now and hope to safely pass our content on to successors to make new decisions based on changing needs and the evolving technical and social landscape.

But it is also helpful to think creatively and more broadly about the future and how this relates to our work in digital preservation.

This DPC event was held in the UK in November 2024. At this watch party we will show two recordings from this session and introduce a local speaker to help us look beyond the technology to the bigger questions about our digital content in the long-term future.

We will show a recording of George Oates and Alex Chan, Executive Director and Tech Lead at the Flickr Foundation speaking about establishing a 100-year plan for the future of the photo sharing platform, Flickr. Then we will hear from Keith Pendergrass, Digital Archivist at Harvard Business School discussing some new ways of thinking about digital preservation in the context of environmental change.

After this we will be joined by Assoc Prof Gavan McCarthy, Editor-in-Chief, "Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation" Swinburne University of Technology, about the journey of the data in the encyclopedia from its earliest foundations on 4 March 1985 when the Australian Science Archives Project commenced operations. A journey of change, evolution and resilience based on digital preservation principles.

This event will include an opportunity for Q&A with our speaker and the wider community discussing the themes raised.

Recordings

All presentations will be recorded and made available to DPC Members and Supporters via this web page after the event (login to DPC website required).

Recordings will also be shared with non-members who pay to attend the event.

Please note – DPC Members do not need to register in order to access the recordings after the event.

Registration

Registration is open to all, with no charge for DPC Members or DPC Supporters and £250 for non-Members. Full Members may register 5 attendees and Associate Members may register 1 attendee for this event. DPC Members can claim their free place by entering the promotional code DPCMEMBER. DPC Supporters can claim their free place by entering the promotional code DPCSUPP. Any additional attendees can attend for a charge of £250.

Registration will close 48 hours before the event starts. If you wish to register after registration has closed, please email eleanor.oleary@dpconline.org

DPC events rely on having minimum numbers to run successfully and effectively. Low numbers may mean events are not viable and will need to be cancelled, so please check that you can attend before booking.

If you register for this event and find that you can no longer attend, you are welcome to send a colleague in your place. If you need to cancel, please email eleanor.oleary@dpconline.org with the event name. If cancelling please try to provide more than 48 hours’ notice before the scheduled event time, otherwise a cancellation fee of £50 may apply.

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.