The iPRES 2024 conference in Ghent, Belgium, was a success for APTrust and its members. The conference, which brought together over 700 practitioners and researchers in digital preservation worldwide, provided a platform for APTrust to showcase its innovative work and leadership in the field.
APTrust staff, members, and friends presented on a wide range of topics. While the proceedings haven’t been published, you can still find many presentations and papers online. In addition, APTrust staff and members helped organize the conference, review papers, chair sessions, and moderate questions.
- Lead Engineer for DevSecOps Flavia Ruffner gave a lightning talk, "Simplify to Amplify: Rearchitecting for Preservation in the Cloud."
- Shelly Black, Brian Dietz, and Trevor Thornton from North Carolina State University presented their paper titled "Scaling Up Digital Preservation Workflows with Homegrown Tools and Automation," which discusses their APTrust workflows.
- Alan Munshower and Alex Kinnaman from Virginia Tech presented their paper "Dancing with Donors: Trust-Building Across Gaps of Curation Priorities."
- Ruby Martinez from Penn State and Executive Director Nathan Tallman presented their paper "Fostering Collaboration Between Research Libraries and Community Archives to Preserve the 'Network of Mutuality.'"
- Nathan Tallman demonstrated DART as an appetizer in the Great Digital Preservation Bake-Off, sharing its usefulness with a receptive global audience.
- Kyle Rimkus and Genevieve Schmitt from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (not an APTrust member) presented the paper "File Fixity in the Cloud: Policy, Business, and Technical Considerations. " The paper discusses their trials and tribulations with cloud fixity until they discovered how APTrust does it and adopted our strategies. Former Lead Developer Andrew Diamond is quoted.
The iPRES 2024 conference was a valuable opportunity for APTrust and its members to share their expertise and learn from others in the field. The conference also helped to raise awareness of APTrust's work and its commitment to preserving the world's digital cultural heritage.