Dr. Eric Kaltman and collaborator Dr. Joseph C. Osborn of Pomona College have won the Best Paper Award at the International Conference on Digital Preservation (iPRES) 2024 in Ghent, Belgium. Their paper, "The Potential of Cited Executable State for Software Object Access, Validation, and Research: A Preview of the GISST System," was selected from a shortlist of papers that received exceptional reviews.

The paper explores how the GISST project enables researchers to create persistent, citable references to specific moments in emulated software and games running in web browsers. By allowing executable states and input recordings to be embedded directly within scholarly works, GISST opens new possibilities for software-based research and digital preservation workflows.

The award was sponsored by NESTOR and presented by Marco Klindt (ZIB) during the conference awards ceremony. This recognition highlights the growing importance of innovative approaches to digital preservation and the potential for executable citation to transform how scholars access and reference historical software.

The work was made possible by funding from the US National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Humanities Advancement Grant.

Dr. Eric Kaltman presented "Curating Game Moments and Performances with Emulated Citation" at the "Save the Games: A Digital Preservation Symposium" held August 21-22, 2024 at the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, NY. The two-day symposium brought together over 200 attendees, including scholars, preservationists, and industry professionals to discuss current challenges and solutions in video game preservation.

The presentation on August 22nd highlighted GISST's capabilities for creating executable citations of game states and its potential applications for both scholarly research and museum exhibition contexts. The Strong Museum's audience was particularly interested in how GISST could support public engagement with historical games and interactive software.

The GISST project has been accepted for presentation at the 2024 Electronic Literature Organization (ELO) annual conference, the 2024 International Conference on Digital Preservation (iPRES) conference, the 2025 Special Interest Group for Computing, Information, and Society (SIGCIS) annual conference, and at the "Save the Games" Symposium at the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, NY.

Each community is excited about GISST's potential for helping scholarly and public research into computer game and software history.