Call for Contributions
Digital Preservation in Disruptive Times
With the theme “Digital Preservation in Disruptive Times” iPRES 2023 will be held in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. We will continue and enhance conversations undertaken by delegates to the 2022 meeting, even as we navigate a world under immense pressure:
- What does it mean to be a steward of community memories and archives in 2023? In the immediate wake of a global pandemic? During the climate crisis? During a time of war?
- What steps can we take to center and value those who have traditionally been excluded from our conversations?
- And most of all, how can we partner with these new voices to imagine a better future not just for cultural heritage institutions, but for society as a whole?
Whether we’re talking about the risks inherent to cloud storage, network fragilities, social media, artificial intelligences, algorithmic inequities, cryptographic arms races, economic fallouts, pandemic spillovers, or dystopian predictions, digital preservation will be vitally important to the future record of our planet. In disruptive times, our responsibility is not only to foster preservation, but also to ensure that society can make use of the incredible amount of data, information, and records that we are stewarding—or that have not been, to date, incorporated into our libraries, archives, and museums.
Topics
Digital Accessibility, Inclusion, and Diversity
Who preserves our culture, and whose culture gets preserved? Digital Accessibility, Inclusion, and Diversity is calling us to extend beyond the status quo. We need to actively increase inclusion in our field, so that the diversity of creators and their work can be reflected in collections. We also need to increase the accessibility of the content we create, so that all scholars can have equitable access to information regardless of disabilities or disadvantages. To the end, we welcome proposals that consider the role of digital accessibility, inclusion, and diversity contributes to our work and communities.
The Blue Waters Supercomputer for Sustained Petascale Computing.
Sustainability: Real and Imagined
What does sustainability mean now, and what might it mean in the future? By discussing Sustainably: Real and Imagined, we seek to build on the environmental perspective to consider an ecology of preservation. We want to consider sustainability across the entire lifecycle of digital information and focus on the ways in which sustainable preservation can be more complete, more equitable, and more innovative. We invite contributions that engage and challenge audiences to consider how sustainability, broadly construed, can deepen digital preservation initiatives.
Alma Mater sculpture created by Lorado Taft.
We’re All in this Together
How and when should digital preservation challenges be shared? We’re all in this together, part of a global community working to preserve history for future generations. We want to hear ways that your institution or project fosters activities and initiatives that promote collaboration, especially initiatives working across disciplines or that address labor and staffing in digital preservation.
General Assembly on Learning Outcomes discussion.
From Theory to Practice
How does research about digital preservation affect what we do, and vice versa? Due to the constantly changing nature of digital content and the technologies required to preserve it, digital preservation has always been a field in flux, where we move from theory to practice, and back again. Theory is an abstraction, a way of making sense of the world,to understand it better. We, therefore, encourage submissions that discuss achievements, challenges, or failures in putting digital preservation theory into practice—as well as ways that our practice affects our research
Display wall at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.
Immersive Information
What does it mean to be enveloped by ephemeral data, information, and records? As the memory landscape changes, should we preserve fluid content in fixed forms? Or should we create different—and seemingly more radical—preservation approaches? When peering into pools of immersive information, digital preservationists may need to take a leap of faith with new methodologies, technologies, or partnerships. We welcome your thoughts and ideas!
“Computing a Future” sculpture created by J. Seward Johnson Jr.
Important DATES
Call for Contributions Published
December 5, 2022
Call for Contributions (Peer-Reviewed) Closes
March 10, 2023
Early Bird Registration Opens
April 6, 2023
Ad-Hoc Program Call for Contributions Opens
May 8, 2023
Submission Notification
May 31, 2023
Ad-Hoc Program Call for Contributions Closes
July 7, 2023
Full Registration Opens
July 7, 2023
Conference Opens
September 19, 2023
Chicago Site Visits
September 23, 2023