New Report on Web Archiving Available

New Report on Web Archiving Available. Andrea Goethals. IIPC. 21 March 2016.
     Harvard Library recently released a report to:

• explore and document current web archiving programs
• identify common practices, needs, and expectations in the collection of web archives
• identify the provision and maintenance of web archiving infrastructure and services;
• identify the use of web archives by researchers.

The environmental scan showed 22 opportunities for future research and development, which includes:

• Dedicate full-time staff to work in web archiving to keep up on latest developments, best practices and be part of the web archiving community.
• Conduct outreach, training and professional development for existing staff who are being asked to collect web archives.
• Institutional web archiving programs should be transparent about holdings, terms of use, preservation commitment, are curatorial decisions made for each capture.
• Develop a collection development tool to show holdings information to researchers and other collecting institutions.
• Train researchers to be able to analyze big data found in web archives.
• Establish a standard for describing the curatorial decisions behind collecting web archives.
• Establish a feedback loop between researchers and the librarians/archivists.

There is also a need to "radically increase communication and collaboration" among all involved in web archiving. Much more communication and collaboration is needed between those collecting web content and researchers who would like to use it.

Digital Preservation Matters.