Closing comments by Andrew Treloar at the iPres 2014 digital preservation conference

1. iPres 2014
One perspective on the conference
Andrew Treloar, ANDS

2. First, my thanks
• For the invitation to attend and provide this
summary
• And for the quality of the
presentations/posters/talks

3. Next, some caveats…

4. PreservationPreservation eResearcheResearch
LibrariesLibraries DataData
© Leif Laaksonen, 2013

6. CC BY-NC-SA https://www.flickr.com/photos/omtebekijken/5934591446/

7. Now, some observations…

8. A birds-eye view

9. On infrastructure
• “Those who cannot learn from history are
doomed to repeat it” - Santayana
• Too much wheel re-invention
• Too much architecture before usecases
• Too much technology push
• But some encouraging signs of a desire to build
on what is there and meet the needs of real users
• And some interesting research ideas

10. On data
• A number of talks about the importance of
data to the scholarly record
• And by implication/explication, the
importance of preserving that data and the
processes that produced it
• Not the same as the existing born-digital
challenge
– see Van de Sompel and Treloar (2014) for why!
• New frontier for preservation community

11. On practice
• Good selection of talks (particularly in the
short papers section)
• Useful reflections on what worked and what
didn’t
• Value of iPres for formal and informal
exchange of stories and experiences
– c.f. Orr JE (1996) Talking About Machines: An
Ethnography of a Modern Job. Cornell University
Press, Ithaca, NY.

12. On theory
• Number of papers focussed on
theory/modelling
• These seemed a bit sterile and divorced from
practice (to me, at least)
• Reminiscent of Enterprise Architectures
• NOTE: But hard to anticipate which theoretical
work will turn into productive practice

13. On pragmatics
• “le mieux est l'ennemi du bien” - Voltaire
• Number of speakers arguing for solutions that
don’t try to be perfect
• And a recognition (in the data domain at least)
that doing it perfectly (or even well?) is
impossible
• Herbert’s idea of starting with a seed, rather
than a collection

14. On sustainability

15. To conclude
• Digital preservation is too important not to care
about
– AT example
• Much of the work being reported at this
conference will play a vital role in the solutions
that need to be developed
• Thank you for your commitment and energy –
please don’t lose it!
• http://www.slideshare.net/atreloar/closing-comment