International Conference for Preservation of Digital Objects (2008) – Call for Papers

Posted on behalf of Jane Humphreys of the BL.

iPRES 2008 Call for Papers

The British Library Conference Centre, St Pancras, London

29 & 30 September 2008

Submission of abstracts is invited to The Fifth International Conference for Preservation of Digital Objects (iPRES 2008), which will be hosted by The British Library at its Conference Centre, in St Pancras, London, on 29&30 September.

The theme of this years’ conference is: Joined up and Working: tools and methods for digital preservation. Papers are invited which present substantial new results, contribute to conceptual foundations of digital preservation or show novel applications of work. Empirical evidence demonstrating what works and what doesn’t is also welcome

Details about the Call for Papers and iPRES 2008 can be found on The British Library web-site at: www.bl.uk/ipres2008. Abstracts should be submitted in AAAI Style and restricted to two pages maximum including title, author but excluding references. Submissions should be made through the mailbox: http:papers@bl.uk/ipres08 by 28 May 2008. Speakers will be notified of acceptance on 14 June.

iPRES is a series of international conferences which seek to address issues relating to digital preservation. The conference brings together experts and practitioners across the spectrum of digital preservation disciplines. Registration will open on 12 May 2008

PDF should be used to preserve information for the future

Press release from the Digital Preservation Coalition

Good news the already popular PDF file format adopted by consumers and business alike is one of the most logical formats to preserve today’s electronic information for tomorrow.

According to the latest report released today by the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), Portable Document Format (PDF) is one of the best file formats to preserve electronic documents and ensure their survival for the future. This announcement will allow information officers to follow a standardised approach for preserving electronic documents.

Information management and long–term preservation are major issues facing consumers and businesses in the 21st Century. This report is one of a series where The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) aims to think about and address the challenges facing us.

This report reviews PDF and the newly introduced PDF/Archive (PDF/A) format as a potential solution to the problem of long–term digital preservation. It suggests adopting PDF/A for archiving electronic documents’ as the standard will help preservation and retrieval in the future. It concludes that it can only be done when combined with a comprehensive records management programme and formally established records procedures.

Betsy Fanning, author of the report and director of standards at AIIM, comments, “A standardised approach to preserving electronic documents would be a welcome development for organisations. Without this we could be walking blindly into a digital black hole.”

The National Archives works closely with the DPC with issues surrounding digital preservation and will continue to do so. Adrian Brown, head of digital preservation at The National Archives said: “This report highlights the challenges we all face in a digital age. Using PDF/A as a standard will help information officers ensure that key business data survives. But it should never be viewed as the Holy Grail. It is merely a tool in the armoury of a well thought out records management policy. “

The report is a call to action, organisations need to act now and look hard at their information policies and procedures to anticipate the demand for their content (documents and records) in the future. Everybody has different criteria, types and uses for documentation so you need to find one that works for your organisation.

If you would like to read the full report please go to the Digital Preservation Coalition website. This can be accessed here: www.dpconline.org/graphics/reports/index.html#twr0802