Gli Hunger Games del LabCD. Un diario di sopravvivenza digitale

Presentation at AIUCD 2026 Cagliari 3-5 June 2026

The paper presents a case study on the preservation of digital research projects through the experience of the Laboratory of Digital Culture at the University of Pisa (LabCD), active since 2011 in the field of Digital Humanities. Drawing on the history and practices of the Lab, the contribution analyzes the structural difficulties involved in ensuring continuity, accessibility, and reuse for a heterogeneous digital heritage developed in a strongly experimental context. It highlights issues common to many university research centers, including reliance on under-resourced IT infrastructures, exposure to external cyber threats, discontinuity of technical expertise, and the lack of long-term institutional preservation policies. The paper then discusses a set of pragmatic strategies adopted by LabCD, such as web archiving of websites as complex objects, selective extraction and preservation of data, and the deposit of structured resources in disciplinary repositories. The case study shows that, in the absence of comprehensive solutions, digital project preservation currently requires conscious, flexible, and sustainability-oriented choices aimed at future reuse.