Please help me collect digital preservation and archival jokes. There are lots of jokes about librarians and libraries out there. (Where are the books about conspiracy theories? Right behind you!) But I can hardly find any about digital preservation or archives. I know for sure that this/these community/ies do have a lot of humour. But for some reason that humour has not been made sustainably accessible in trusted digital repositories.

I had the wonderful opportunity to join the jury of the 2022 Digital Preservation Awards. Sometimes at the start of a meeting, while we were waiting for everyone to arrive, it was quiet. I then occasionally shared a joke with those already present. Fortunately there was a limited number of meetings. I had only managed to collect a limited number of jokes.

iPRES stand-up comedy hour?

Even if I don’t happen to return for jury duty in 2024, I’d like to expand my collection of jokes. An alternative might be a stand-up comedy hour during the iPRES Ad Hoc program or a contribution to World Digital Preservation Day. The collection might even be the start of a COMEDI (Community Owned MEnu of Digipres Iokes*) on digipres.org.

What I’m looking for are onliners, jokes, fun stories, et cetera. I’m less interested in movies, cartoons or comics (even though I created some images for this blog). The topics can range from digital preservation to archives and archivists. And from people’s functions to the work we do or systems we use. (What kind of archive does a beaver build? A DAM**!)

If you have any jokes to share, send them to remco DOT van DOT veenendaal AT nationaalarchief DOT nl. Please provide citation or other context information where necessary. Offensive or individual-directed submissions will be archived under /dev/null.

* For those that now how to “to proceed in the footsteps of the Word of God”.

** DAM: Digital Asset Management system