Lost in the Cloud: Saving Humanity’s Digital Documentary Heritage

The UNESCO Persist Symposium Lost in the Cloud was held on Wednesday 3 October 2018 in Canberra, Australia as a joint initiative of the National Archives of Australia, the International Council on Archives (ICA) and UNESCO.

Convened by the National Archives, the symposium explored the nature of digital heritage, the vulnerabilities that place it at risk and the strategies needed to identify, preserve and keep accessible digital heritage that could be lost through technological obsolescence.

The speaker presentations and panel discussions can be viewed via the National Archives of Australia Youtube channel, via these links:

• Session 1 (morning): https://youtu.be/ajg6asBr0cY
• Session 2 (middle): https://youtu.be/Cd4BUIQl_zQ
• Session 3 (afternoon): https://youtu.be/Ff39hp_D1Y4

Symposium brochure: UNESCO PERSIST SYMPOSIUM – Lost in the Cloud – Australia – 3 October 2018.

Wednesday, 9am-4pm, 3 October, 2018
Realm Hotel, Canberra, Australia
Registration from 8.30am

8.30   Registrations
9.00   Opening statement – Kylie Walker, Chair of the Australian National Commission for UNESCO and Chief Executive Officer of Science and Technology Australia
9.20   UNESCO statement – David Fricker, Vice-President of the UNESCO Memory of the World International Advisory Committee
9.45   Keynote speaker: Tim Gollins, Head of Digital Archiving, National Records of Scotland
10.30  Morning tea

11.00   Panel 1: Digital – What are the preservation challenges for documentary heritage?
• Panel MC: Kylie Walker, Chair of the National Australian Commission for UNESCO
• Tim Gollins, Head of Digital Archiving, National Records of Scotland
• Meg Labrum, General Manager, Collections and Access, National Film and Sound Archive
• Representative, Dell EMC
• Anne Lyons, Visiting Fellow, Australian Strategic Policy Institute
12.30   Lunch

1.30   Keynote Speaker: Dr Maya Haviland, School of Archaeology and Anthropology,
Australian National University
2.15  Panel 2: Memory, education and cultural heritage – What are the threats, implications and opportunities?
• Panel MC: David Fricker, Director-General, National Archives of Australia
• Dr Maya Haviland, School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University
• Dr Marie-Louise Ayres, Director-General, National Library of Australia
• Craig Ritchie, Chief Executive Officer, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
• Professor Ross Harvey, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University

3.45  Summation – David Fricker
4.00  Networking

Categories: PERSIST Programme, Technology & software