Reflecting on iPRES 2024

Guest blog post by Valerie Love, Senior Digital Archivist and Acting Digital Collections Team Leader, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa National Library of New Zealand

One of my personal highlights of last year was attending iPRES 2024 in Ghent and Flanders Belgium in person. The four conference co-hosts - Digital Archives Flanders, Ghent University, Meemoo, and VRT - put on a truly remarkable event. It was wonderful to meet so many new people, and also to reconnect with digital preservation colleagues and friends from around the world.

Following the conference, attendees were asked what their favourite elements were. Unsurprisingly, it was the iPRES community itself that came out on top!

Data from iPRES 2024 Survey Responses.

This chart tracks with my own experience of iPRES 2024 as well. Meeting new people and engaging with the digipres community, the programme content, the social aspects of the conference, and the beauty of the city of Ghent itself all contributed to an incredible event. Full disclosure, there was so much on the programme that I didn't actually get to the wildly popular Bake-Off sessions - looking at the feedback, I definitely missed the boat on that one! For me personally, in addition to everything listed on the chart above, I really enjoyed the Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions, and being able to sit in conversation about digital preservation topics that are top of mind. Having a safe space to discuss and share information with one another as practitioners and learn from colleagues around the world is one of my favourite things about iPRES generally. The professional visits and behind the scenes tours at the University Archives and Digital Lab KU Leuven and Alamaire Library of Voices were also invaluable, not to mention a lot of fun!

Another post-conference survey question asked: What topics from the conference would attendees like to continue discussing with the digital preservation community going forward?

Again, there were some great answers here and potential ideas for iPRES 2025 sessions:

Sustainability and Environmental Impact 

• Carbon footprint of digital preservation and workflow best practices.

• Climate change’s impact on digital preservation and vice versa.

• Tension between sustainable digital preservation and reliance on proprietary AI tools.

• Green IT and sustainable infrastructure.

• Appraisal vs. institutional pressures to collect more digital content.
  

Digital Preservation Workflows and Technologies 

• Tools and automation, including scripting, AI, and workflow integration.

• Preservation of complex formats, legacy hardware, and DAM integration.

• Digital record transfer, especially in cloud environments.

• Web and social media archiving at scale.
  

Cloud Adoption and Digital Preservation 

• Use of cloud storage in preservation workflows.

• Cost modeling and long-term sustainability of cloud-based preservation.

• Digital preservation of governmental records in the cloud.

• Challenges of integrating cloud solutions into institutional workflows.

Community and Collaboration 

• Community-driven digital preservation efforts.

• Digital preservation in local communities and activism.

• Building communities of practice and sharing challenges.

• Community engagement and how institutions share collections.

AI and Digital Preservation 

• Uses of AI for metadata creation, accessibility, and discoverability.

• Ethical concerns of AI, including energy consumption and intellectual property.

• AI’s role in digital preservation workflows, both successes and failures.

Emerging Topics and Future Directions 

• What digital preservation might look like in the next 10 years.

• Providing access to sensitive digital collections (e.g., redaction in emails).

• Preservation of audiovisual materials and research data.

• Institutional efforts to ensure long-term sustainability.

Professional Development and Working Conditions 

• Skills development and training in digital preservation.

• Digital preservation in art education.

• Workload and mental health considerations in the field.

• Advocacy and lobbying for better working conditions.

For more inspiration from iPRES 2024, take a look at last year’s conference videos, and the complete programme on Zenodo.

Hope to see you all in Wellington in November! Nau mai, haere mai.