IPRES in Copenhagen could perhaps best be described as an international meeting place for professionals from a wide range of fields, all working in different ways with preservation and information management.
The conference theme was Community Preservation Horizon, creating the acronym CPH, which also happens to be the internationally used abbreviation for Copenhagen. The theme ran through many of the presentations. Community and the need to work together to address major challenges such as climate change, cyberattacks, reduced funding, war and political instability in many countries were recurring topics throughout the days in the Danish capital.
A conference like IPRES provides an opportunity to exchange experiences, hear about new solutions and approaches that can be relevant to our everyday work, and, in many cases, get confirmation that what we are doing back home is not entirely off track in a global context.
Arkiwera was represented by our archivist and CEO, Magdalena Sjödahl. She attended many interesting presentations on system solutions for digital preservation, open source solutions addressing individual pieces of the preservation puzzle, and the challenges involved in preserving, for example, digital artworks and games.
One important issue raised during the conference was how to ensure that data storage and processing take the climate into account and do not result in an increasing environmental impact, but rather help reduce it. This is also an issue we at Arkiwera are following closely together with our server providers.
Beyond the presentations, the conference provided plenty of opportunities for engaging conversations and discussions. One afternoon even featured a session with board games – naturally, with preservation as the theme. A Cluedo-inspired game had a group of us participants so engaged in finding the culprit that we almost missed the following session. For Magdalena, that session meant listening to David Giaretta, one of the authors of, among other things, the OAIS standard, make the case for representation information and semantic information relating to digital preservation objects.
The welcome ceremony on the first evening was held at Copenhagen City Hall. It is a beautiful building where not only local politicians work, but where the City Archives also have part of their archival collections. In a very literal way, the building illustrates how the decisions of the future are built on our shared experiences and history: the City Archives are located on the ground floor, while the local politicians work several floors above.
The second day of the conference ended with a beautiful ceremony at Copenhagen’s impressive National Library. Awards were presented, and we had the opportunity not only to listen to but also to sing along with Inuit songs performed by Gaz Zaa Lung and her daughter, Helene Naduk.
