Archive-It

February 20th, 2015

Every month we will share links to articles and blogs we feel capture important lessons, projects, and ideas to consider in our work saving the web. Here’s what we’ve been reading in February!

“All My Blogs are Dead”
Carter Maness

A music writer considers the disturbing reality that most of the content he has published online no longer exists.

“Topic Modeling Web Archive Modularity Classes”
Ian Milligan

If you are interested in applying web archives to historical research, and you aren’t already following Ian Milligan of the University of Waterloo’s blog…get on it!

“Religion, Social media and the web archive”
Peter Webster

As an historian of religion and an experienced web archivist, Webster considers the gaps in knowledge when social media archives and research are not connected to archived websites of churches.

“How Old VHS Tapes Helped Save Early Web Design”
Sophie Weiner

Some of the earliest websites are now only viewable through now digitized VHS tapes that hoped to explain the Internet to its earliest users.

“Locking the Web Open, a Call for a Distributed Web”
Brewster Kahle

The blog version of a presentation given by Brewster Kahle, founder and Executive Director of the Internet Archive, at the Knight Foundation’s NetGain meeting earlier this month.

“The Perpetual Sunrise of Methodology”
Cameron Blevins

“At times we exhibit more interest in developing new methods than in applying them, and in touting the promise of digital history scholarship rather than its results.”

“Describing Web Collections”
Allison Jai O’Dell

An interesting (and informal) look at the thought process involved for one Special Collections Librarian to describe collections of archived websites.