Practicing digital preservation in one of the most isolated cities in the world has its challenges, but with the NSLA Digital Preservation Network and a generous bursary from the NSLA Strategic Communications Program I was able to attend the 21st international conference on digital preservation, iPRES 2025. Hosted in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa (Wellington, New Zealand), it was a short seven-hour flight from Boorloo (Perth), Western Australia and the State Library of Western Australia where I manage hundreds of terabytes of unique digital heritage collections. The opportunity to speak face-to-face with not only my Australian and New Zealand peers, but international colleagues was invaluable to growing my digital preservation skills and networks.
This year’s keynote speakers included Tuvalu’s Minister for Transport, Energy, Communications and Innovation, The Honourable Simon Kofe, and Peter-Lucas Jones, CEO of Te Hiku Media. Kofe spoke of the Tuvalu government’s efforts to create a ‘digital ark’ of Tuvaluan cultural heritage due to the active and urgent threats presented by climate change to the island nation. The work Peter-Lucas spoke of involving te reo Māori natural language processing tools, and indigenous language pronunciation modelling showed possibilities for cultural and community-led approaches for the State Library’s collections.
In addition to having the opportunity to present the State Library’s work in preserving thousands of at-risk audio visual materials and our digital preservation journey, it was extremely validating hearing about similar projects and issues from my peers. Posters and presentations about the use of LLMs in transcribing large volumes of AV materials, digital preservation storage criteria, and the joys of extracting data from legacy floppy disks helped to reaffirm and validate the work we have been doing, while also making connections with similar organisations for future collaboration and learning. Overall, attending a conference like iPRES has helped to inspire and re-affirm my work and ongoing professional development. I am grateful for the opportunity enabled by NSLA and the Digital Preservation Network.
Andrew Kelly, Digital Preservation Manager, State Library of Western Australia