Archive-It

March 27th, 2015

Every month we share links to articles and blog posts that capture important lessons, projects, and ideas to consider in our work saving the web. Here’s what we’ve been reading in March, 2015!

Where in the Archive Is Michele Weigle?
By Michele Weigle, Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.

A close look into one’s professional history online requires engagement with multiple archives, the limitations of various web archiving technologies through the years, and some investigative work.

The History of the IIPC, through Web Archives
Nicholas Taylor, Web Archiving Service Manager, Stanford University

Similar to the above blog post, this is a case study exploring the web presence of an organization (which just so happens to be the International Internet Preservation Consortium). What can we learn about an organization by examining how they have presented themselves online and updated their website over the years?

Javascript and Archives
Ed Summers

An overview of the role of Javascript in web archives and various projects that seek to solve the problem of executing code to discover and replay content from the archived web. For what it’s worth, Archive-It has made considerable advances in handling Javascript-driven archiving challenges through our development of Umbra.

The Right to Be Remembered
Tech Weekly Podcast, The Guardian

This one is more of a listen than a read, but it’s worth plugging in your earphones to hear a great conversation exploring Vint Cerf’s “Digital Dark Age” warning that made the rounds last month. Features Helen Hockx-Yu of the UK Web Archive.

Tools for Discovering and Archiving the Mobile Web
Frank McCown, Monica Yarbrough and Keith Enlow,
March/April 2015 issue of D-Lib Magazine

A concise and educational article outlining the various kinds of mobile web content that a web crawler might come across and making suggestions for how Heritrix can better discover mobile versions of web pages.

Big Data and Big Challenges for Archives
Glen McAninch, BloggERS! SAA Electronic Records Section Blog

“Big Data” is more than just a buzzword, it describes a set of challenges and opportunities faced by an increasing number of archivists tasked with acquiring large and amorphous datasets. Glen McAninch describes how Big Data relates to archives and spotlights some relevant projects.

MARC, Linked Data, and Human-Computer Asymmetry
Dorothea Salo, Library Journal

MARC was invented in the 1960’s, so it is no surprise it doesn’t often help us with the data challenges of 2015 (see Big Data article above). Dorothea Salo outlines the basic principles that a modern metadata schema must adhere to in order to meet the linked data needs of today.

Web Archiving Happens Here: NYARC hosts the first meeting of Archive-It NY
Karl Blumenthal, National Digital Stewardship Resident for New York Art Resources Consortium

Describes the conversations and presentations of the first ever NY Archive-It user group, organized entirely by Archive-It partner organizations and users.