Two conferences, one stunning city, and a shared mission: to learn, contribute, and strengthen the digital preservation community across our region and beyond. Our team - Sarah, Tyler, Piers and myself (Jarrad) - arrived in Wellington for iPRES and PARBICA ready to listen, to share what we’ve been building, and to connect with the people driving some of the most important work in archives and collections today. What followed was a week fueled by open and authentic conversations, collaborative problem-solving, and the kind of knowledge exchange that only happens when practitioners from around the world gather in one place. From two hands-on tutorials from our team on digital preservation on a budget, to award-winning posters and deeply grounded Pacific perspectives, the week pushed our thinking and reaffirmed why we are so committed to this work.
Here’s our reflections on the week…
Jarrad’s reflections on the week:
The week in Wellington opened with real momentum as Sarah and Tyler set the tone through their “Duct Tape and Downloads: digital preservation on a budget” tutorial - proving that practical, budget-conscious digital preservation can be both powerful and accessible. The engaged audience from around the world shared the experience, their passions and even sometimes their concerns (P.S. A wonderful reminder to ask Tyler why solid state drives are not a great medium for long term digital preservation).
What followed during the week was a consistent and inspiring message from practitioners around the world: the sector thrives when curiosity, collaboration, and community come first. As a newcomer to Gaia, it was clear why digital preservation sits at the heart of our work. The blend of technology, open-source thinking, and genuine support for one another echoed everything I’ve already experienced within our team.
Conversations around AI revealed a field eager to explore but still cautious about the practical realities - ethics, governance, and how to merge emerging technologies with collections that span decades or centuries. While answers remain in development, the appetite for innovation is unmistakable and I am sure this will be revisited again at iPres2026 in Copenhagen.
The closing days at PARBICA were particularly moving. Hearing Pacific practitioners speak about protecting culture, stories, and identity - through both traditional knowledge and modern tools - was a powerful reminder of why this work matters. Delivering our tutorial again to such an engaged, thoughtful audience was the perfect capstone to the week. We left Wellington energised, inspired, and more committed than ever to supporting a field that is often under-recognised but absolutely essential for preserving our collective memory.
Piers’ reflections on the week:
This was my first IPRES and our aim of coming to it was to see what we could learn, and to see what we could also give back to the archiving community that we have become very fond of through our various projects. Our "Duct Tapes and Downloads" workshop - covered above - was a great and positive way to start the week in Wellington!
It was also the first time in a very long time that I didn't present at a conference, so I had the luxury of being able to listen and learn while also supporting our team as much as I could from the sidelines. I got to learn from talks about other instances of ArchivesSpace (which we support at the Queensland State Archives, who were also the core of our Bake Off presentation), about metadata standards and approaches, other organisations journey into Digital Preservation, and even got to meet people behind some of the amazing open source tools that are out there and that we use, especially the team behind DROID from the National Archives of the United Kingdom. It was a bit like drinking from the fire hose - the amount of information I was being given was amazing, and it's a real struggle to be able to condense this back down to a simple summary!
But for me there were some powerful and very regionally focused talks - starting with Simon Kofe's opening address, multiple panels and sessions that were focused on the Pacific region that really got me into the zone for the following PARBICA conference. PARBICA was a wonderful and welcoming experience that left me (and I'm sure all of us) really brimming with ideas about how we could help deal with some of the problems that the Pacific faces, and I hope that we were able to start that giving back through that forum and the workshop that Sarah and Tyler presented so well.
While this was one of my longest work trips in a while, it was also one of my most uplifting, and there's going to be a lot of good stuff coming out of that trip which I'm looking forward to shepherding to fruition over the next few months.
Sarah’s reflection on the week:
Our week in Wellington for iPRES and PARBICA was a big one. While we were there to learn and connect with colleagues and institutions, we also presented a tutorial, a poster and a live demonstration.
Our tutorial, Duct Tape and Downloads: Digital Preservation on a Budget, kicked off the conference week on Monday morning. It was very well received and was a great scene-setter for the week. The goal of the tutorial was to provide a high-level workflow for organisations that do not have the resources to implement a large digital preservation system. This talk has been something we have wanted to do for a long while, and we were rewarded with a very warm reception of the material.
The poster we presented was a collaboration with QSA to provide an overview of their highly integrated archival management systems: ArchivesSpace, ArchivesGateway, ArchivesSearch, and Archivematica. The poster sparked many wonderful discussions and connections. At the end of iPRES, we were honoured with the award for best poster at the conference.
Our live demonstration complemented the poster and highlighted the transfer workflow for Queensland Government Agencies to Queensland State Archives. This, too, was successful as we were finalists for the best demonstration award.
The wrap-up of iPRES kicked off the start of PARBICA. The afternoon of the first day, we presented the Duct Tape and Downloads tutorial again. While I have not personally worked with organisations in the Pacific, the conversations were interesting and rewarding. Many organisations in the Pacific deal with different challenges than collecting organisations in Australia. While we may take our internet connection and predictable power for granted, this is not always the case for our Pacific colleagues. In particular, this made our conversation about storage robust.
In summary, while it was a very big week, it was an incredibly rewarding week.
Tyler’s reflection on the week:
Over the course of six long days, split between iPres and PARBICA, our team was honoured to present two tutorials, a poster, and a live demo. The discussions that followed were thoughtful and practical. They revealed just how hungry the community is for pragmatic, open, and sustainable solutions. Seeing participants take our ideas and apply them to their own contexts was both energising and affirming. Thank you again to those who attended. I really hope we were able to help you in some way.
In between these presentations, I was privileged to speak with some of the most passionate people in digital preservation. I don't come from a digital preservation background, so this was about learning as much as possible from everyone I met. These practitioners, researchers, technologists, and community leaders are actively confronting the challenges that threaten long-term access to information. They came with new standards, tools, collaborations, and stories.
We left the conferences with notes full of teachings, ideas, and a renewed sense of purpose. From new educational resources to new ways to help distribute them, these events have sparked next steps for our team. There is still a long road ahead for digital preservation. Still, iPres and PARBICA remind us that hope isn't just optimism, it's the result of people working together to solve complex problems, one practical step at a time.
The week that was:
So, as we all left Wellington, our notebooks were overflowing with notes, drawings and realisations - but more importantly, so was our sense of purpose. The insights and relationships forged across iPRES and PARBICA underscored the collective momentum building in digital preservation: a community committed to practical solutions, open standards, and supporting organisations no matter their scale or setting. The challenges ahead are real, but so is the energy driving progress and opportunities to make an impact. We return inspired by what we learned, proud of what we were able to contribute, and motivated to turn these conversations into action over the months ahead.
If you missed the week of digital preservation in Wellington and are interested in learning more about the work we do at Gaia Resources to support collecting organisation, or if you attended one of our presentations but didn’t get a copy of the slide deck, please do not hesitate to let our Business Development Manager Jarrad Lawrence know via email or start a conversation with us on LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram.