The Next Big Thing
Karen Colbron Paul Stokes
There’s always something new on the horizon. A new “next big thing”. Some whither and die quite rapidly, but some… Some go on to have a significant impact on the digital preservation community.

We’d like to propose a BoF to enable a bit of horizon scanning to a) identify ‘the next big thing’ (or things) and how it (they) might affect the digital preservation community, and b) what we as a community should be doing about it. 

Possible contenders for the title include:
•	**Environmental impact**—There has always been a tension between resource use and preservation, especially as the ‘data deluge’ ramps up. Environmental impact adds another facet to the argument. We have a responsibility to future generations to preserve information, but we also have a responsibility to minimise our impact on the planet. Being able to measure that impact and mitigate it is becoming increasingly important.
•	**Artificial Intelligence**—It’s hard to escape the looming presence of AI. It pops up, wherever you look. Does it have a place in digital preservation?
•	**Trust**—This has many levels of complexity. We’re all familiar with the authenticity problem (how can we guarantee that information we’re preserving is the same [or provides the same experience] over the long term), but what about the trustworthiness of the information in the first place? Is it even our place as curators to question the validity of our sources?

What else should be on the list?

We intend to revisit this discussion at a future iPRES to see if the collective iPRES brain got it right (2020 hindsight is a wonderful thing) and to see what’s changed.
approaches to preservation scaling up