Web Archiving at the Library of Congress, by Abbie Grotke, Computers in Libraries (Dec 1)
Abbie Grotke leads the web archiving team in the Office of Strategic Initiatives, Library of Congress. In this article she gives us an eye-opening view of the state of web archiving - the need to save the content, the tremendous challenges, and the work of the Library of Congress in partnership with others in the United States and internationally.
Archiving the web is no small matter. The Internet Archive may be the best known digital library, but the Library of Congress has several programs done in partnership with other libraries. There are many challenges, the major ones being selection - what to preserve, and technology - dealing with rapidly changing web design. Collaboration is key.
This one paragraph gives a sense of the enormity of the task - and the responsibility.
Posted by Gwen at December 1, 2011 02:12 PM
"Since the LC’s pilot program began in 2000, more than 250 terabytes of content have been archived in almost 40 event and thematic collections. The LC’s collections strengths are in government, public policy, and law: The LC archives U.S. national elections; House, Senate, and congressional committee websites; changes in the Supreme Court; and “blawgs” (aka law blogs). The LC has worked with partners to archive web content related to “spontaneous events”—events that the LC can’t plan for but must react quickly to preserve: 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the earthquake in Haiti are among those collections, as is archiving content being generated by participants in the recent events in the Middle East. The LC’s web archives also include collections that support special collection divisions—the Manuscript division is archiving sites related to the organizations for which it holds the physical papers. Our Prints and Photographs division has archived websites of photographers, cartoonists, and architectural firms. And the Music division has just started to archive the websites of organizations and institutions with content that relates to the LC’s Performing Arts collections."