As the train carried me back to Brussels on Friday, September 20, 2024, it was the perfect moment to look back on my first experience attending iPRES 2024, held this year in Ghent, Belgium.
FriPres Day: A Brand-New Initiative
The opening Monday of the event introduced something entirely new to iPRES a pre-opening session called FriPres (fripres.com), spearheaded by my colleague Morgän Attias. Recognizing a growing desire among French-speaking professionals in the field of digital preservation to connect and share ideas, he proposed this event to the iPRES 2024 organizing committee, which kindly provided a dedicated space for it.
The afternoon featured a series of fascinating presentations.
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Marion Ville, from the VITAM project, demonstrated several tools supporting archival collection, including Archifiltre, ReSIP, and Octave.
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Arnaud Hulstaert of SMALS shared insights on a public third-party archiving platform, discussing his concept of “living archives” and offering practical advice on building a scalable system capable of handling 500,000 monthly consultations.
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Hugues Cazeaux, from the University of Geneva, presented the framework behind the Yareta research data repository and explored intriguing prospects related to DNA-based data storage.
For my contribution, I presented lessons learned from twenty years of experience developing and evolving the Arcsys software twenty years filled with meaningful collaboration and continuous learning, confirming the value of working collectively to advance digital preservation.
We hope this initiative will continue in future editions of iPRES, in similar or expanded formats.
Discovering iPRES 2024
On Tuesday, I dove into the different session types that make iPRES such a unique event.
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Lightning Talks short, five-minute presentations that demand both precision and composure. One that particularly caught my attention (and evidently the audience’s, earning an award at the closing ceremony) was our client Belspo’s talk on its implementation of Arcsys.
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Papers and Panels these longer sessions encourage discussion among multiple speakers. A particularly memorable session focused on cloud-based preservation and questioned whether it’s beneficial for universities to outsource infrastructure expertise to private providers. Other discussions addressed the cost optimization of integrity checking in cloud environments and a thought-provoking keynote by Aaron Perzanowski on intellectual property and cultural preservation, highlighting how the streaming era threatens public access to cultural works traditionally shared by libraries.
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Bake-offs interactive and entertaining demonstrations resembling “Top Chef” competitions in spirit, complete with chef hats! I admired those brave enough to perform live demos before a crowd, especially the striking showcase of data preservation on glass and ceramic substrates, reputed to withstand oven-level heat.
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Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions small-group workshops for open discussion. I attended one focused on the Francophone community and the shared need to develop a common preservation vocabulary. Another explored how private photo storage companies are establishing foundations dedicated to long-term cultural preservation, recognizing personal and collective digital memories as part of humanity’s heritage.
Personal Takeaways
What did I take away from this experience?
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A vibrant community iPRES brings together archivists, researchers, and technologists unified by their passion for digital preservation. Their curiosity, humility, and humor made every session engaging and rewarding.
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Flawless organization the event’s app-based navigation was intuitive, enabling real-time note-taking and easy scheduling, while the catering and logistics were impeccable. Many thanks to the organizers and support staff for their hard work.
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Language matters as an international event, iPRES highlights how challenging it can be to follow presentations across different accents and fluency levels. This made the French-language sessions especially valuable, offering both clarity and a way to strengthen bonds within the Francophone community.
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A stunning host city Ghent is a gem of a destination. The evening boat tour organized for conference participants was the perfect way to discover its charm after a day of discussions.
A Lasting Impression
My first iPRES experience was both enlightening and inspiring. The event provided a genuine sense of belonging to an international community devoted to safeguarding digital heritage. It reinforced my conviction that collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and collective innovation are essential to overcoming the challenges ahead in digital preservation.
I look forward to contributing further and reconnecting with this passionate community in future editions of iPRES.
