IPRES 2026
The themes for iPRES 2026 are: Community, Preservation, and Horizon.
How can we foster and sustain a community, in order to overcome a worldwide challenge?
The challenge of digital preservation is too large for anyone to solve alone. We are all part of a global community working to preserve information and history for future generations. There are many ways that a community can exist, and there can be specialised communities around focused areas within digital preservation. Digital Preservation is not just for libraries, universities and archives, but for a wide range of industries with an obligation to preserve information for long periods, for example banking and pharmaceuticals.
We invite contributions that engage and challenge audiences to consider in what ways collaboration is initiated, supported or sustained. Initiatives working across disciplines are most welcome.
Examples are:
- Multidisciplinary partnerships working together on preservation challenges.
- How to ensure the continuity of preservation programmes, standards, best practices and systems.
- How practitioners can grow their own networks, advocate for the profession, and mentor the next generation of preservationists.
How do we best perform and adjust digital preservation practices?
Even though digital preservation is a relatively new area, there are many different practices supporting different digital preservation purposes. In order to choose the best practices to achieve a given purpose, it is always relevant to share knowledge about our success, failures and lessons learned – for old as well as emerging preservation practices.
We invite contributions that encourage audiences to reflect on what we can learn from current preservation practices, how we can adjust, enhance and build on these practices so as to overcome ongoing challenges.
Examples are:
- Challenges and lessons learned of overcoming technological obsolescence, resource limitations, and evolving standards.
- Challenges and lessons learned of ensuring long term bit-level preservation.
- Challenges and lessons learned of digital preservation strategies.
What is on the Horizon for digital preservation in an ever changing world?
The ever-changing world calls for adjustments in digital preservation. Changes in technology, climate and the geopolitical situation affects the digital preservation area in many ways, thus supporting technologies and practices must be flexible and robust to ensure the safety of information going forward. We invite contributions that challenge audiences to consider how to keep the eyes on the horizon for digital preservation initiatives; mitigating disruptions, innovating on technologies, and (re-)evaluating digital preservation practices.
Examples are:
- Research and innovative practices that push the boundaries of traditional digital preservation towards robustness and better coverage of digital preservation needs.
- Re-evaluation of previously accepted strategies, best practices, standards and norms.
- Explorations of how we might adapt to different types of changes.
