DPC Members Forum and Networking Event - Australasia/Asia-Pacific

09:15 – 09:30

Registration open, tea and coffee provided

09:30 – 09:45

Welcome from PROV and Introduction to the DPC Members Forum Day 1

09:45 – 10:30

Discussion

Revising and reconsidering digital preservation strategies and frameworks: How to guide decisions and connect strategy to day-to-day activities
Matthew Burgess, State Library NSW

The State Library of NSW is currently reviewing its Digital Preservation Framework, first established in 2022 and subject to review every two years. As part of this process, we are reflecting on what works in practice and exploring different approaches to the development and implementation of digital preservation strategies and frameworks. This discussion session invites participants to share experiences, challenges and examples of how strategic priorities can be translated into day-to-day activities, resourcing, projects and decision-making, and ensuring that strategy remains a living tool that actively supports ongoing work rather than something considered only as part of a periodic review process.

10:30 – 11:15

Discussion

Collecting contemporary video games
Taryn Ellis, ACMI

While many of us have experience preserving historical software-based works, contemporary video games present a different set of challenges. ACMI is developing a workflow to manage newly commissioned titles, examining the process from delivery mechanisms through to quality assessment, testing, documentation, and the long-term management of dependencies. In this session I'll share our progress to date and invite participants to discuss how they are approaching the collection and preservation of interactive works.

11:15 – 11:45

Morning tea

11:45 – 12:30

Discussion

Managing Indigenous Cultural Material – the future of the CoP
Robin Wright, DPC

The DPC’s MICM Task Force has been meeting since June 2025 and has recently voted to become a Community of Practice. This session will discuss the progress to date, the need to develop systems for direct engagement and benefit for Indigenous communities and ask local members to consider how they can contribute to the future CoP. We will discuss the possibility of presenting a session on the group’s activities at a DP Spotlight session later this year.

12:30 – 13:00

Break for Lunch and Networking

13:00 – 13:15

Welcome back after lunch

13:15 – 14:00

Discussion

Bridging the Gap: Designing Sustainable Digital Preservation Workflows Across Existing Ecosystems

Kathryn Lindsay, Monash University Library

Implementing a digital preservation system doesn’t happen in a vacuum; it requires integrations with established discovery, access, storytelling, or repository platforms. Monash University Library is exploring digital preservation options for our digitised Special Collections and theses, focusing on building sustainable workflows across our existing systems: Bridges (Figshare), Library Search (Alma/Primo), Monash Collections (Recollect), and potentially Specto. This interactive session invites participants to share their experiences connecting digital preservation tools into broader institutional ecosystems. Together we will discuss key system selection criteria and practical integration approaches, from leveraging APIs and custom scripts to managing any necessary manual steps, to identify transferable strategies for developing sustainable workflows.

14:00 – 14:45

Discussion

Building user-friendly appraisal workflows on a budget

Susannah Bourke, SLV

SLV has established processes for bitstream preservation, but with a large and complex backlog of material the challenge of supporting appraisal of digital archives is now coming to the surface. In this session I’d like to discuss how we might be able to support curatorial staff to make decisions, how much data should be kept about those decisions, and how to capture that programmatically. 

14:45  – 15:00

Afternoon tea

15.00 – 15.45

Panel session

Panel on collecting/transferring digital records by State Archives

Sarah Harris, PROV, Stefania Di Maria, QSA

This session will include a screening of a short recording from the Bake-Off session at iPRES2026 by The National Archives (UK) An express route to immortality: from SharePoint to the National Archives in one click

15:45 – 16:30

Discussion

Digital Preservation as business as usual

James Doig, NAA (online)

This is a continuation of a panel held at iPres 2026 to discuss the question ‘what does digital preservation business as usual look like at your institution?’ In particular, the session will discuss is BAU a helpful term and is digital preservation ever ‘usual’. 

16:30 – 16:45

Round up and Close of Day 1

09:15 – 09:30

Registration open. Coffee available from local coffee cart.

09:30 – 09:45

Welcome from University of Melbourne and Introduction to the DPC Members Forum Day 2

09:45 – 10:30

Share

Findings from a database deep dive
Tori Waqanaceva-Simpson, NAA

A data recovery project involving 9 track magnetic tapes relating to the Agent Orange Scientific Investigation in the early 1980s has produced many findings and implications for digital archiving workflows. These include challenging assumptions about preservation planning, access requirements, file formats, system processes and item description. This sharing session will highlight some of the key findings from the project thus far and invite participants to suggest new avenues of enquiry or share their own experiences with complex digital objects.

10:30 – 11:15

Learning session

AI, Automation and Digital Preservation at Scale

Jeff Palmer, Commonwealth Bank Group Archives

Group Archives at Commonwealth Bank is exploring how AI and automation can accelerate archival description, improve discovery, and support long-term digital preservation. This session will share practical lessons from developing an AI-enabled archival description pipeline, the relationship between preservation and discovery, and how these approaches are being applied across large-scale archival collections. The session will also touch on Project ECHO, an initiative to digitise and preserve thousands of legacy audiovisual assets and make them more discoverable and accessible over time. Participants will be invited to discuss opportunities, risks, governance considerations, and emerging practice in the use of AI for digital preservation.

11:15 – 11:45

Morning tea

11:45 – 12:30

Learning session

PARADISEC – infrastructure responding to local community needs

Nick Thieberger, PARADISEC

The team behind PARADISEC have created a system that is responsive to community needs. Taking advantage of advances in technology, and not being bound by an analog legacy, they can accession files and make them available (subject to access conditions) in a matter of minutes. They respond to takedown requests, for example, removing access to a recording of an Aboriginal man who had recently died, and then making it available again when advised by the family. As PARADISEC works with a number of small agencies to digitize analog materials for them, they are also keenly aware of the need to have appropriate ways of delivering items from their own collection.

12:30 – 13:30

Break for Lunch and Networking (lunch available at Professors Walk café – at own expense)

13:30 – 14:30

Travel to Federation Square by tram

14:30 – 15:30

Industry site visit

Site visit (limit of 10 participants) at ACMI Blackmagic Design Media Preservation Lab

Located at ACMI, Federation Square on Level 1, the Blackmagic Design Media Preservation Lab (MPL) is a publicly visible space where the ACMI collection team undertakes digital preservation, digitization and time-based media conservation activities. The objects on view illustrate the variety of technologies which form part of the ACMI collection; from the earliest film formats to digital files on hard drives. Activities include film scanning, magnetic media capture, optical disc capture, film viewing and inventorying.

15:30 – 16:30

Close of Day 2 – drinks at Riverland Bar, Federation Wharf https://fedsquare.com/venues/riverland-bar