Web Archiving
Web archiving is the process of collecting portions of the Web and ensuring the collection is preserved in an archive, such as an archive site, for future researchers, historians, and the public. Due to the massive size of the Web, web archivists typically employ web crawlers for automated collection. The largest web archiving organization based on a crawling approach is the Internet Archive which strives to maintain an archive of the entire Web. National libraries, national archives and various consortia of organizations are also involved in archiving culturally important Web content.
"Just a quick phone call to ask you if you could set up something to archive the University Web site, it should be pretty straight-forward for someone with your technical know-how."
It is only a matter of time before someone in "Corporate Communications", the " Freedom of Information Office" or some similar department comes to you with this sort of request. How would you (have you) react(ed) to it?
Many acres of virtual text have been penned on the subject of Web archiving (a fair proportion of them no longer available because the sites no longer exist:-) One of the major problems, which is well illustrated by the Wikipedia article on the subject, is that most authors have concentrated almost entirely on "How?" to do it and the (technical) difficulties that arise.
The speaker will argue that "How?" is the least of your problems. What is your institutional web site for and what purpose is archiving it supposed to serve. To put it another way, the questions: "What?", "Why?", "When?" and "Where?" come well before deciding if the "Who?" is you, or trying to determine "How?".
As usual Currall asks awkward questions and never seems to provide any useful answers, just turning seemingly simple problems in complex, issue-strewn minefields. He hasn't written the talk yet, but you can be sure that it will raise some very fundamental issues and give you something serious to think about and discuss and aside from manufacturing Shakespearean quotes, will probably quote from the most read book in the English Language, although you might feel the need to check that he isn't just making it up!
On the other hand ... you could just leave it all to the Way Back Machine at the Internet Archive.
business purpose
David Hyatt talked about this on Wednesday AM
so did
Alison Wildish on Wednesday AM
Purpose?
espida
Value
There must be some value in order to incur cost.
What?
determines
Why?
how much of it?
how often?
Cost
Storage is cheap, management of storage is not!
What?
determines
Why?
how much of it?
how often?
Value
There must be some value in order to incur cost.
What?
determines
Why?
how much of it?
how often?
How?
and finally
Where?
and then
When?
determines
Why?
What?
determines
Why?
how much of it?
how often?
Who?
and then
When?
determines
Why?
What?
determines
Why?
how much of it?
how often?
alignment and engagement
Alison Wildish make this point strongly on Wednesday AM
Value
There must be some value in order to incur cost.
What?
determines
Why?
how much of it?
how often?
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