Many Hands / Whose Hands? Archiving the Web, Collaboratively

Abstract

These are the slides, speaker notes, and citations from the Spring 2018 New England Archivists (NEA) and Archivists Roundtable of New York (ART) Joint Meeting presentation by Samantha Abrams, Karl-Rainer Blumenthal, and Amy Wickner, "Many Hands / Whose Hands? Archiving the Web, Collaboratively." Web archiving brings new narratives and sociotechnical challenges into archival spaces. The breadth, depth, and ephemerality of collective and individual experiences of the web demands collaborative archival approaches. How can archivists, creators, and subjects of web-based material together establish context-sensitive, ethical approaches to web archiving? This session focuses on working together to capture the live web efficiently, comprehensively, and sensitively. With sustainability, collection building, and division of labor as central themes, we’ll discuss experiences with outreach, collection policy development, and maintenance. We’ll also consider strategies to advocate for the documentation of the web within and beyond institutional infrastructures. We hope to leave participants with both answers and questions as they embark upon their own collaborations.