Ruby L Martinez is a PhD student and Research Assistant at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign and a Digital Preservation Assistant at Penn State. She attended the 2025 iPRES Conference with support from the DPC Career Development Fund, which is funded by DPC Supporters.
Although iPRES 2025 took place back in November 2025, releasing this reflective blog post around Valentine’s Day feels fitting. Conferences, at their best, are labors of love—toward our field, our communities, and the futures we are trying to build and preserve. A few months of distance has given me time to reflect more deeply on what stayed with me after the conference ended: the ideas that lingered, the connections that grew, and the values that felt affirmed. What follows are fourteen things I loved and learned at iPRES 2025.
1. The incorporation of Indigenous culture and honoring local communities
From the very beginning, iPRES 2025 grounded itself in place. The ceremonial welcomes, including the mihi whakatau (welcome) and cultural performance by the Whitireia Performing Arts Group during the opening reception, made it clear that this conference was not just happening in Aotearoa New Zealand, but with it.
This grounding extended into the conference themes themselves, which incorporated te reo Māori concepts — Haerenga (Journey), Tūtaki (Encounter), and Tūhono (Connect) — and invited us to apply them directly to digital preservation practice. These weren’t decorative additions; they prompted reflection, encouraged a more holistic way of thinking, and set the tone for how I engaged with the conference as a whole.
2. The Opening Keynote (Nov. 4)
Honourable Simon Kofe – Future Now: Preparing Today to Secure Tomorrow
The opening keynote foregrounded the importance of history and values, and the constant interplay between where we come from and the work we do now. Hon. Kofe’s discussion of redefining sovereignty in the context of a Digital Nation—particularly in relation to securing Tuvalu’s future—made tangible the very real stakes of digital preservation.
He played with concepts familiar to us in the profession—memory, access, continuity—but framed them through lived experience and national survival. It was a reminder that our work is never abstract, and that digital preservation can be an act of care, resistance, and self-determination.
3. Presenting on an all BIPOC panel
Bree’ya N. Brown, Ruby L Martinez, and Ima Oduok - Reflections on the Field: Experiences of Early Career Digital Preservation Practitioners
II’ll admit it: I don’t enjoy presenting. But this experience was different. Presenting on an all-BIPOC panel for the first time was incredibly affirming, especially given the appreciation my fellow panelists and I received throughout the conference week. Our panel session felt like a shared moment of honesty about navigating the field as early-career practitioners. It also reminded me of the importance of representation and how that shapes what conversations feel possible.
4. The Bake-Off
The iPRES Bake-Off is one of the most practical and engaging parts of the conference. Seeing tools, workflows, and digital preservation processes in action demystifies the work in a way that papers alone sometimes can’t. It was exciting to see the variety of approaches people took to solve problems, reinforcing the idea that there is rarely a single “right” way to do digital preservation—just thoughtful, context-driven ones.
5. Digital POWRR winning Best Paper
Seeing the Digital POWRR team receive the Best Paper award felt like a celebration of community-centered work. Their Paper—Confidence, Community and a Course of Action: Takeaways from Ten Years of Digital POWRR Training—articulated how “connection can become a framework for sustainability.” Congratulations (again) to Stacey Jones, Jaime Schumacher, and Danielle Taylor.
6. The announcement of future host cities
As a member of the elections subcommittee and an STG at-large member, I had insider knowledge before the news was shared… BUT it was still a joy to witness the collective excitement when the new host cities were announced. The enthusiasm around Mexico City in 2028 was especially energizing! All the future host cities emphasize how much location matters in shaping the character and accessibility of our profession and the growing iPRES community.
7. The importance of external funding
I felt deeply grateful to be at iPRES 2025. As a PhD student balancing part-time and project-based roles, my attendance at iPRES this year was up in the air until I got the news I was being offered a grant from the DPC Career Development Fund! Funding opportunities like this are so important, particularly for early-career professionals and students who might otherwise be excluded from these spaces.
8. Opportunities for growth and connection
Conferences are equal parts informative and social. iPRES offered the chance to see colleagues I usually only interact with on Zoom, to finally meet people I’ve heard about for years, and to mentally check off names that had previously lived only in citations or Slack channels.
As an introvert with auditory processing challenges, networking can be difficult, and my ability to engage often depends heavily on the environment. iPRES reminded me that conference design—and generous colleagues and friends—can make connections more accessible.
9. The Closing Keynote
Peter-Lucas Jones – Airwaves to Algorithms: Digital Preservation o Te Reo Māori
This keynote was both powerful and unsettling. The reminder that 50% of the world's languages may disappear by 2050 puts urgency into conversations about preservation, language, and power. Jones emphasized that self-determination is central to this work, and that misinterpretation can sometimes cause more harm to languages than colonization. Language, technology, and responsibility are deeply intertwined and digital preservation sits right at that intersection.
10. When data science meets digital preservation
Lotte Wijsman – How Data Science Meets Digital Preservation (Lightning Talk)
I appreciated seeing an explicit and practical exploration of how data science can support digital preservation work at scale. Wijsman shared how the National Archives of the Netherlands is using R (a programming language) to automate analysis of information objects received from governmental organizations. The use of data visualizations—both as an analytical tool and to support communication with records creators—demonstrated how data science can make preservation work more transparent and scalable. And, admittedly, I just really love charts.
11. Night at the Museum
The conference ended with an unforgettable night at the museum where iPRES attendees had exclusive after-hours access to Te Papa Tongarewa, celebrating World Digital Preservation Day and the conclusion of iPRES. It was equal parts joyful, reflective, and a reminder that preservation is as much about celebration as it is about responsibility.
12. New Zealand itself
Aotearoa New Zealand’s commitment to preserving its natural beauty felt deeply aligned with the values of digital preservation. Care, stewardship, and long-term thinking are visible everywhere—and those same principles translate beautifully into our work.
13. Intentional and sustainable conference design
iPRES 2025 paid quiet but meaningful attention to how the conference itself was produced. From handmade lanyards using excess fabric to opting out of standard branded swag, there was a clear effort to reduce waste and encourage reuse and creativity. Even the decision to make the conference branding openly available invited creativity and reuse rather than consumption. These small design choices reinforced that stewardship isn’t just something we talk about; it’s something we can practice.
14. Why PRESERVE
Karyn Williamson’s Why Preserve - A collaborative way to promote the sector poster prompted reflection on the deeper motivations behind our work. After a conference filled with conversations about sovereignty, language, and community, the question of WHY we preserve is inseparable from HOW we do it. It was a reminder that articulating our “why” is not just about advocacy but about responsibility, ensuring that preservation practices are collaborative, intentional, and aligned with the communities they are meant to serve.
Ultimately, iPRES 2025 asked us not just what we can learn from each other, but what we can learn from our communities, from history, and from the world around us. Months later, those lessons still feel alive and very much worth holding close.
Acknowledgements
The Career Development Fund is sponsored by the DPC’s Supporters who recognize the benefit and seek to support a connected and trained digital preservation workforce. We gratefully acknowledge their financial support to this programme and ask applicants to acknowledge that support in any communications that result. At the time of writing, the Career Development Fund is supported by Arkivum, Artefactual Systems Inc., boxxe, Cerabyte, DAMsmart, Evolved Binary, Ex Libris, HoloMem, Iron Mountain, Libnova, Max Communications, Pictoscope, Preferred Media, Preservica and Simon P Wilson. A full list of supporters is online here.