iPRES 2025 - PANEL 1: Reflections on the Field: Experiences of Early Career Digital Preservation Practitioners

PANEL 1: Reflections on the Field: Experiences of Early Career Digital Preservation Practitioners

Tracks

Rongomātāne C

Tuesday, November 4, 2025

1:00 PM - 2:30 PM

Rongomātāne C

Speaker

Bree'ya Brown

Digital Archivist, Assistant Librarian

University Of North Texas

Reflections on the Field: Experiences of Early Career Digital Preservation Practitioners

Summary Abstract

This panel addresses Tūhono (Connect) for three practitioners of digital preservation. Orientating our discussion from perspectives of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) who live and work in the United States, we examine our paths into digital preservation and the roadblocks and detours we’ve faced. How did we get where we are and who helped us? Where do we see our careers going? What does this path look like to other BIPOC information workers and how do we connect with them? These questions are asked in the context of a country experiencing a political pushback against equity efforts.

Biography

Ima Oduok is the Assistant Digital Preservation Analyst at the Rockefeller Archive Center, where she leads the archive’s digital preservation strategy. Her areas of interest include digital preservation, processing and access of born-digital collections, and the environmental impact of digital archives. Bree’ya N. Brown works in Special Collections at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. Brown manages born-digital collections and leads digitization projects. As faculty librarian, Brown teaches Archives & Manuscripts for the College of Information Science at UNT. Ruby L. Martinez is the Digital Preservation Assistant at Penn State University and a PhD Candidate at the University of Illinois.