Do you often encounter tricky files that can’t be identified? Do you have pesky system files that you would like to see automatically excluded from your deposit? Do you have special metadata requirements that your users can’t live without? Do you feel that there really ought to be a system or a tool that can tackle a process you currently do manually? Or do you really just want to see how other tools or solutions approach a workflow that you use?

Look no further! Let us know which digital preservation challenges you would like to see tackled during the iPres 2022 Conference, as part of the Digital Preservation Bake-Off Challenge and your questions will be answered. Provide your input before 23 May via this form!

The iPres 2022 Program Committee wants to know what you would like to see at the Digital Preservation ‘Bake-Off’ Challenge. That's why we are opening this community call. Although there is no actual baking at the Bake-Off, the whimsical name of this activity sets the light-hearted tone to a serious purpose. 

The Digital Preservation Bake-Off Challenge is framed as a competition between solution providers who will demonstrate their products while allowing conference delegates to observe the process and verify the claims that are made. 

A group of judges provide a common challenge (set by you, the community, in answer to this call) based on a common set of inputs and requirements, to the participating group of solution providers who are each given a fixed amount of time to produce a required output using their standard toolkits and workflows. 

At the end of the allotted time, the judges assess whether the participants have achieved the desired goal and award prizes accordingly. This approach means solution providers demonstrate their systems and tools based on real world problems selected by the community but are also able to learn from the experience. 

Set the Challenge!

We invite suggestions of real digital preservation challenges which can be put to the test by solution providers and developers. These should focus on practical impediments to the preservation of digital materials. They should be based on real world situations but be of wide enough relevance that they will be recognised by the global digital preservation community. The challenges may relate to any competent digital preservation theme, such as integrating digital preservation into line-of-business systems, thorny content types, metadata extraction and handling, meeting user requirements, scaling up, or achieving greater efficiencies while not sacrificing quality of outcomes. They may also relate to end-to-end systems or specific tools and applications. It is preferred though not essential that these relate to one of more of the themes of the conference.

We are curious to know which digital preservation challenges you would like to see tackled in the Great Digital Preservation Bake-Off, so please make your suggestions via this form.