Safeguarding Workshop @ Kula

On August 27–28, 2026, project SHIELD members co-organized a workshop at Kula Academy, University of Victoria, Canada. This in-person workshop was an introduction into different facets of our work, open to registration by the public. On this page we reproduce the workshop announcement including the full agenda.

Kula Safeguarding Workshop splash image depicting the workshop title and cooperation partners on a colorful background

What is the Safeguarding Research, Data & Culture Movement?

Since early 2025, US agencies have deleted thousands of web pages and datasets that are part of society’s common knowledge — public health data, environmental records, cultural heritage materials, and scholarly publications. And the current US administration is not the only government altering or censoring public knowledge.

Enter initiatives that are racing to save such contested knowledge: grassroots projects like SciOp and Safeguarding Research & Culture, as well as the DFG-funded Project SHIELD, hosted at the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB Hannover).

Agenda

The workshop will introduce these projects and their work; it will explain BitTorrent — the peer-to-peer technology which many Safeguarding projects rely on; it will touch on the legal terrain around downloading and redistributing this material — what is protected, what is risky, and where the gray areas sit. And finally, the practical side: how to get involved, from casual seeding to joining a project outright.

Detailed Itinerary

Thursday 27 August

10:00–10:30 · Welcome and introductions
Why saving data matters and what kinds of data are at risk. A chance to say who you are and what brought you here.

10:30–11:00 · What we want from these two days
Mapping our shared aims — for data rescue generally, for our own institutions, and for each of us in the room. We'll open a shared notepad and start a running list of questions to return to.

11:00–12:00 · Meet the projects: SRC, SciOp and SHIELD
A short history of safeguarding and where it sits alongside older practices such as dark archiving and CLOCKSS. What each project set out to do, and where each one stands now.

12:00–13:00 · Lunch (provided by UVic Libraries)

13:00–14:30 · Legal and ethical questions
How do we map and assess risk? How does safeguarding differ from other forms of archiving? What legal questions face people who copy and redistribute this material — and what ethical ones, including the CARE principles for Indigenous data governance? Where can you go for support?

14:30–15:00 · How BitTorrent works
A plain introduction to the peer-to-peer technology underneath much of this work.

15:00–15:30 · Reflection on day one
What we learned, what we still want to know, and whether the day met the aims we set that morning.

Friday 28 August

10:00–10:30 · Welcome and recap
Previously on… plus introductions for anyone joining on day two, and a chance to add new aims.

10:30–12:00 · Hands on: SciOp and qBittorrent
A practical session on how to contribute. Bring a laptop if you can.

12:00–13:00 · Lunch break
The practical session continues for anyone who wants to keep going.

13:00–13:30 · What galleries, libraries, archives and museums can do
German institutions and perspectives, and the history behind this work.

13:30–15:00 · Broadening the network
Collaborative mapping. Who can get involved with SciOp and SHIELD? Who has the skills and the infrastructure? What data do we most want to safeguard, and who holds it? Who is missing from this work, and how do we reach them? What other systems need decentralising?

15:00–15:30 · Reflection and next steps
What we take away — individually, at our institutions, and as a movement. Who does what next.

Hosts

Event Details

UVic Libraries will provide hot lunch on Thursday, and coffee, tea & cookies throughout.

This event is part of Kula: Library Future Academy’s Truth, Knowledge & Society series — held in partnership with TIB Hannover’s Open Science Lab and its Project SHIELD (funded by the German Research Foundation), and Safeguarding Research & Culture.