During the last week of October 2025, I had the opportunity to represent the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) at the International Council on Archives (ICA) Congress in Barcelona.
While I have attended other events during my time at the ADS – like CAA UK 2023 in Edinburgh, iPres 2024 in Ghent, and the Atrium 3D Training School in Brno earlier this year – this one was unique. It was my first time not just attending, but also speaking at an international event I’ve been eager to join ever since I started working in the archive sector.
I landed in Barcelona after midnight of Monday, 27th October. My accommodation was right next to the conference venue, so I had a few hours to rest before a short walk to the Barcelona International Convention Centre (CCIB) to complete my registration.
While the conference wouldn’t officially start until the next day, Monday offered attendees the opportunity to participate in several workshops. I joined Workshop 5: Digital Preservation Assessment, where we teamed up with colleagues from institutions across the globe to discuss and assess our archives’ needs based on the NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation. After that, we were all invited to a cocktail reception, where I had the opportunity to have a friendly chat with old and new acquaintances.
Over the next couple of days, the number of talks to choose from was huge—with more than ten concurrent sessions from 9am until the late afternoon both on Tuesday and Wednesday. I focused on sessions aligned with our work at the ADS and my wider interest in the digital humanities, including:
- AI tools for archives
- New tools, new roles, new users
- Preserving Born-Digital Futures: Standards, Access, and Environmental Responsibility
- Reconstructing Memory: Artificial Intelligence, Archival Practice, and Digital Ethics
I also made a point to attend the earlier Lightning Talk sessions (the one presenting the various ICA sub-groups and Session 1), as I would be presenting during the third one on the final day.
After two very interesting but long days spent hearing about digital-born and digitised archives, as well as a lot of AI-related discussions, I decided to take a break from all that on Thursday morning. I attended the Archives Preserving Identities session, which ended with a surprise when session chair Jordi Padilla-Delgado was joined by the highest authorities in the organisation to present the ICA Declaration on LGBTQI+ and Sex-Affective and Gender Diversity Archives and Archivists, which we were all invited to sign.
This was followed by Lightning Talk Session 2 where I finally got to deliver my presentation. It was titled The HS2 Digital Archive: Tackling Scale, Complexity, and Accessibility for a Large Scale Archaeology Project, and was co-authored with fellow ADS digital archivist Valeria Carrillo.
The lightning talk format was a great challenge, forcing us to distill our work a project of such enormous scale into just a few minutes. I was happy with the positive response, and it was rewarding to end the conference having constructive discussions about my work with newly met colleagues.
In conclusion, my first ICA Congress was an inspiring and validating experience. The main theme I took away was one of shared purpose. Whether working in institutional, university, corporate or specialist archives like the ADS, we are all grappling with the same core issues: managing the sheer volume of digital-born or digitised data, navigating the ethics of new technologies, and ensuring the long-term preservation of our collective memory.
It was a reminder that the work we do at the ADS is part of a much larger, global conversation. I’m returning to York with a notebook full of ideas, a list of new professional connections, and a renewed sense of dedication to our mission.
