Websites as Records - Digital Archives for Websites - Preservation
of Websites
Susan K. Soy
Prepared for Seminar in Records Management:
Managing Electronic Records
LIS389C.5 #88785 -- Instructor Tad C. Howington,
CRM
Hodge, G. M. (2000, January). Best practices for digital archiving: An information life cycle approach. D-Lib magazine, 6(1). [Online]. Available: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january00/01hodge.html [Accessed 29 July, 2000].
Digital archiving is defined as long-term storage, preservation, and access to information that is "born digital" (created and disseminated primarily in electronic form) or for which the digital version is considered to be the primary archival source item. The author points out that because of technological advances, the time frame in which we must consider archiving is much shorter now than in the past. The traditions and best practices formed in the print environment are today inadequate, inappropriate, and this author contends, not well known among the stakeholders in the digital environment. This study set out to uncover the best practices for digital archiving and found them in the international arena, primarily in very large organizations including the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Library of Australia, the American Institute of Physics, and the National Library of Canada. Best practices include planning for digital archiving at the point of creation of the digital item.
Iacovino, L. (1999). Regulatory, recordkeeping and legal issue associated with managing websites. Australian Society of Archivists Electronic Records Special Interest Group. [Online]. Available: http://www.archivists.org.au/events/websites/iacovino.html [Accessed 05 August 2000].
Iacovino raises a number of questions in this presentation at the Australian Society of Archivists Electronic Records Special Interest Group seminar entitled "Managing Websites Seminar: Gearing Up for the E-Commerce Era." The questions include: How can we create and reconstruct transactional records on the Web? Who owns the records and has control over them? Do the records provide evidence of a contractual or other legal relationship? Who are the entities transacting via the Web? How do we capture information about them? Are we revisiting the problems of electronic information systems without recordkeeping functionality in the Web environment? Can intranet systems linked to the Web retrieve transactions with all their contextual attributes? Are government studies addressing the issue of retaining records as records in time and over any length of time on the Web? She concludes that Web technologies are not providing recordkeeping systems, that we must understand that web transactions for e-commerce are business transactions that fall under traditional recordkeeping business and policy rules, and that we must keep up-to-date with regulatory changes.
Complementary presentations from this Seminar include:
Lyman, P. and Kahle, B. (1998, July/August). Archiving digital cultural artifacts: Organizing an agenda for action. D-Lib Magazine, 4(7). [Online]. Available: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july98/07lyman.html [Accessed 29 July, 2000].
Lyman and Brewster provide an agenda for action to preserve digital cultural artifacts using the combined conscious actions of librarians, scholars, computer scientists, and policy makers. They portray digital artifacts as a medium for archiving the record of our culture because of the growing number of publications on the Web and the variety of cultural expression that is represented in them. The authors trace the early first steps of Web preservation pointing to efforts to create the archeology of the Web by creating search and retrieval aids, the Internet Archives effort to capture vast portions of the Web, and the Alexa Internet that tries to identify intellectual structures on the Web. Lyman and Brewster contend that these efforts are based on our current understanding of libraries and archives when, instead, we need to invent new kinds of institutions and management techniques to preserve the Web cultural artifact.
McClure, C. R. & Sprehe, J. T. (1998). Guidelines for electronic records management on State and Federal agency websites. National Historical Publications and Records Commission. [Online]. Available: http://istweb.syr.edu/~mcclure/guidelines.html [Accessed 05 August 2000].
This project attempted to develop records management and preservation strategies for electronic information contained in state and federal agency websites. The guidelines include helpful definitions for website, record, recordkeeping system, webmaster, content manager, and records officer. The study recommends that agency officials recognize that some materials posted on the agency Internet websites do qualify as official government records and must be transferred into appropriate recordkeeping systems. The risk of not doing this is measured in terms of "accountability exposure." The report provides a helpful succinct statement: "When materials are posted to an agency website and the materials quality as records, and the materials have not already been adequately captured in an agency recordkeeping system, then the agency must take steps to establish a linkage between the website and an agency recordkeeping system and transfer the records into the recordkeeping system." The full report is titled Analysis and Development of Model Quality Guidelines for Electronic Records Management on State and Federal Websites.
Documents that are complements to this report include:
Serfass, C. (1998, October). A strategy for archiving the school of information web site. [Online]. Available: http://www-personal.si.umich.edu/~cserf/655/macpaper.htm [Accessed 29 July, 2000].
This paper was produced for a course in Management of Electronic Records. The students analyzed whether traditional preservation policies applied to the University of Michigan website by examining current policies and procedures for electronic recordkeeping at the University, copyright issues, technology issues, and appraisal and scheduling issues specific to websites. The students concluded that the Website has evidentiary value and that (1) a plan is needed to list appraisal criteria, (2) an archival library should be developed for the website, and (3) a schedule should be developed for saving the entire website to disk. In the process of preparing this report, the students determined that little print literature exists on this topic and that none of the universities they contacted as benchmarks were currently trying to preserve their websites. The study also concluded that the majority of the items on the website could be copied without infringing on copyright or needing to seek the permission of a copyright owner.
Spindler, R. (1999, December). Preserving Web-based records. Paper presented at Preservation and Access for Electronic College and University Records Conference (ECURE), October 7-8, 1999. http://www.asu.edu/it/events/ecure/ecure1999/spindler-presentation.html [Accessed 05 August 2000].
Arizona State University Libraries developed first hand experience with the difficulties of preserving the web-based html encoded university policy manuals in a manner that would comply with the Arizona public records laws. Lessons learned include: (1) HTML encoded documents and websites are effective access tools, but not effective recordkeeping systems, (2) decentralized computing makes it difficult to establish uniform recordkeeping standards, (3) capturing the record of an interactive website is a matter of snapshot timing as well as format and content scope, (4) it may be acceptable to identify the text content of the web document as the record and the html presentation of it as artistry, (5) metadata or contextual information about the snapshot and documentation on the execution of backup procedures is important in establishing authenticity of the record, (5) costs of web preservation are unknown and can not be compared to costs of the permanent retention of paper records, and (6) should appearance and functionality become essential elements of the record, use of proprietary software and html codes increases the risk of record loss or corruption.
OTHER ARTICLES TO EXPLORE AT A LATER TIME
An approach
to managing Internet and Intranet information for long term access and accountability:
A paper presented by the IM Forum; Internet and Intranet Working Group
http://www.imforumgi.gc.ca/iapproach2_e.html
Archive
Builder Website
http://www.archivebuilders.com/
CORC
http://www.oclc.org/oclc/research/projects/corc/
Dunn, Ashley. Web's evanescence creates challenge for archivists. New York Times January 21, 1998.
http://search3.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?
Electronic
Records Draft Guidelines -- Mississippi Department of Archives & History
http://www.mdah.state.ms.us/arlib/erglnav.html
International Council for Scientific and Technical InformationRusson's presentation in Budapest http://www.icsti.org/icsti/russon-budapest.html
The
Internet Archive
http://www.archive.org/
Kahle,
Brewster. Preserving the Internet
http://www.sciam.com/0397issue/0397kahle.html
Kuny,
Terry. The digital dark ages? Challenges in the preservation of electronic information
http://www.ifla.org/VI/4/news/17-98.htm
Leonard,
Andrew. Can history survive Silicon Valley? June 10, 1999
http://www.salonmagazine.com/tech/feature/1999/06/10/stanford/index.html
Lesk,
Michael. Preserving digital objects: Recurrent needs and challenges
http://www.lesk.com/mlesk/auspres/aus.html
The
LongNow Foundation
http://www.longnow.org/
Montfort,
Nick. In search of webs past. Tech Review
http://www.techreview.com/articles/july00/viewpoint.htm
New
York Times August 13, 1998. Where Sites Go to Die
http://search3.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?
Silberman,
Steve. Your thoughts: A permanent public record
http://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/story/10780.html
Utah
State Library & Archives: Electronic records
http://www.archives.state.ut.us/recmanag/electronic.htm
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Last Updated 09/17/2000
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