Into the Future

In 2024 the digital preservation community can look back with pride on what we have achieved. However, new challenges appear on the horizon, often originating from areas beyond our profession. We may no longer be able to conquer these within the existing preservation community, like we are used to do. 
Three decades ago, in 1998, a group of 60 people gathered in Hotel dos Templarios in Tomar, Portugal. They arrived from around 20 countries to participate in the first international workshop on digital preservation in Europe. The air was filled with eagerness and enthusiasm. Everyone felt part of a new and adventurous journey: how to preserve electronic (aka digital) heritage, the human record.
This DELOS 6th workshop on Preservation was organized by two (!) projects funded by the European Commission: DELOS, consisting of computer scientists and NEDLIB, a project of national libraries. Two different worlds coming together in one place.
The Tomar workshop started with a film “Into the Future. On the preservation of knowledge”. An initiative of CLIR, still available on Vimeo. The film aimed to raise awareness, amongst the general public and policy makers, of the risk of losing digital information. In just 50 minutes, broadcast via television, it conveyed the necessity of digital preservation.
The 15 presenters at the workshop spoke on a range of topics, seemingly inspired by the 1996 report of Garrett and Waters “Preserving digital information”. Since then, the digital preservation community has made tremendous progress. Over time, the heritage organisations involved were able to translate the problems into workable solutions. Individual initiatives were connected in collaborative projects, initiated and funded by heritage organisations themselves with the support of the European Commission, the National Science Foundation and various governments. The profession of digital preservation shaped itself. We have built a solid house of digital preservation. 

 Change is afoot, as the discipline is challenged by growth, critical reflection on what's been built so far, its image of being an "elite" and highly specialized discipline. Developments like artificial intelligence and the effects of climate change will make it necessary to explain our principles and practices and to cooperate with other disciplines. Are the current DP practices sustainable enough to cope with these developments? Or is it time to renovate the house we have built?