In the keynote that opened Born Digital Cultural Heritage Now 2023 on November 29th, 2023, Melanie Swalwell, Professor of Digital Media Heritage at Swinburne University, emphasised that collaboration is critical if we are to meet the urgent technical, ethical, institutional, conceptual and cultural challenges of preserving our digital media cultures, both those that have already been collected and are at-risk of degradation and those that are evolving with new technologies.
Melanie reviews the achievements of previously funded Digital Heritage projects, Play It Again I and Play It Again II, as well as the Archiving Australian Media Arts project, and highlights how they have acted as the foundation for a new project, AusEaaSI. The Australian Emulation Network builds upon insights and knowledge shared about disk imaging, methodologies for preservation, and the use of emulation (EaaS) to provide access to media artworks and video games within major collections and archives in Australia.
AusEaaSI extends this research to establish emulation as a shared infrastructure and involves a consortia of over fifteen research institutions and GLAM organisations, along with AARNet. This network of researchers, professionals, and industry leaders are collaborating across disciplines and areas of expertise because, as Melanie notes, “born-digital cultural heritage reaches into all disciplines and … progress on the challenges of preserving it will only be achieved through people from a range of disciplines and professions working together”.
For information on the people and partnerships involved visit the the AusEaaSI website