Building a Living, Breathing Archive:A Review of Appraisal Theories and Approaches for Web Archives

Post, Colin

doi:10.1515/pdtc-2016-0031

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The study conducted by Post (2017) found that national archives through enactment of the National Archives Act are to collect archival material as part of preserving cultural heritage. The collection of ERMS requires collaborative collective models.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of archives infrastructure in South Africa

Netshakhuma

2019

GKMC

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose The purpose of this study is to assess the extent to which the Mpumalanga Provincial Archives (MPA) complies with the Mpumalanga Archives Act, 2008 legislative/policy provisions of archives building, capacity building and electronic records management and to suggest recommendations for effective archives and records management (ARM) programme in South Africa. Design/methodology/approach This paper adopts a quantitative approach supplemented by qualitative data using document review to collect data and content analysis. Findings The results show that MPA enacted Mpumalanga Archives Act, 2008. However, the challenge is the implementation of such legislation. The findings of this paper would contribute towards the literature in archival legislation in South Africa and other parts of the world. Research limitations/implications Even though the paper was based in South Africa, it was limited to the MPA of South Africa. Practical implications The findings are expected to be instrumental in the implementation of Mpumalanga Archives Act, 2008. Social implications The findings and recommendations will help in guiding MPA on the implementation of an effective provincial archive and records to facilitate the effective management of records to determine those of archival value, to preserve them for posterity and to make them accessible to the public. Originality/value This is an original study using a document review to review the Mpumalanga Archives Act, 1998. The effective archives infrastructure will contribute to compliance with legislative components such as archives building, cooperation, ERMS, appraisal and disposal of records, archives advisory body and access to information.

show abstract

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of archives infrastructure in South Africa

Netshakhuma

2019

GKMC

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…While it is democratic in nature, the web is large with often undefined boundaries that must be viewed within context. A single website, removed from this interconnectedness, loses its context and value, unlike discrete digital files which have set parameters and established best practices for preservation [7]. In theory, a user types or selects a URL and is taken to that website, but, all too often, in practice, the published content at that web address has either changed or no longer exists.…”

Section: Archiving the Fragile And Abundant Internetmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prepandemic Antivaccination Websites' COVID-19 Vaccine Behavior: Content Analysis of Archived Websites

2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the concurrent development of vaccines offered a rare and somewhat unprecedented opportunity to study antivaccination behavior as it formed over time via the use of archived versions of websites. Objective This study aims to assess how existing antivaccination websites modified their content to address COVID-19 vaccines and pandemic restrictions. Methods Using a preexisting collection of 25 antivaccination websites curated by the IvyPlus Web Collection Program prior to the pandemic and crawled every 6 months via Archive-It, we conducted a content analysis to see how these websites acknowledged or ignored COVID-19 vaccines and pandemic restrictions. Websites were assessed for financial behaviors such as having storefronts, mention of COVID-19 vaccines in general or by manufacturer name, references to personal freedom such as masking, safety concerns like side effects, and skepticism of science. Results The majority of websites addressed COVID-19 vaccines in a negative fashion, with more websites making appeals to personal freedom or expressing skepticism of science than questioning safety. This can potentially be attributed to the lack of available safety data about the vaccines at the time of data collection. Many of the antivaccination websites we evaluated actively sought donations and had a membership option, evidencing these websites have financial motivations and actively build a community around these issues. The content analysis also offered the opportunity to test the viability of archived websites for use in scholarly research. The archived versions of the websites had significant shortcomings, particularly in search functionality, and required supplementation with the live websites. For web archiving to be a viable source of stand-alone content for research, the technology needs to make significant improvements in its capture abilities. Conclusions In summary, we found antivaccination websites existing prior to the COVID-19 pandemic largely adapted their messaging to address COVID-19 vaccines with very few sites ignoring the pandemic altogether. This study also demonstrated the timely and significant need for more robust web archiving capabilities as web-based environments become more ephemeral and unstable.

show abstract

“…Regarding appraisal theories, Post (2017) argues that active selection of webpages by heritage institutions is necessary, in addition to verifying when new approaches are required. As it is impossible to preserve the entire web, it is necessary to consider the characteristics of web materials including which websites are appropriate to the collection, how frequently they are collected and how much of existing material to capture.…”

Section: Background and Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change and web archives: an Ibero-American study based on the Portuguese and Brazilian contexts

Rockembach

Serrano

2021

RMJ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose The purpose of this investigation is to analyze information on the web and its preservation as a digital heritage, having as object of study information about events related to climate changes and the environment in Portugal and Brazil, thus contributing to an applied case of preservation of web in the Ibero-American context. Design/methodology/approach It is a theoretical and applied investigation and the methodology uses mixed methods, collecting and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data, from three data sources: the Internet Archive and public collections of Archive-it, the Portuguese web archive and a complementation from collections formed by the research group on web archiving and digital preservation in Brazil. Findings The web archiving initiatives started in 1996, however, over the years, the collections have been specializing, from nationally relevant themes, to thematic niches. The theme “climate changes” has had an impact on scientific and mainstream discussions in the 2000s, and in the years 2010 the theme becomes the focus of digital preservation of web content, as demonstrated in this study. To not preserve data can lead to a rapid loss of this information owing to the ephemerality of the web. Originality/value The originality of this paper is to show the relevance of preserving web content on climate changes, to demonstrate information on climate changes on the web that is currently preserved and what information would need to be preserved.

show abstract

Building a Living, Breathing Archive:A Review of Appraisal Theories and Approaches for Web Archives

Cited by 8 publications

References 16 publications

Analysis of archives infrastructure in South Africa

Analysis of archives infrastructure in South Africa

Prepandemic Antivaccination Websites' COVID-19 Vaccine Behavior: Content Analysis of Archived Websites

Climate change and web archives: an Ibero-American study based on the Portuguese and Brazilian contexts

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About