Wonders of the web captured forever…

Launch of UK Web Archiving Consortium will dramatically boost lifespan of key web materials

Launched today (22 June 2004), the UK Web Archiving Consortium (UKWAC) aims to expand the lifespan of website materials from around 44 days (the same life expectancy as a housefly) to a century or more. Comprising six leading UK institutions, the UKWAC will work, with the permission of rights holders, on an experimental system for archiving selected key UK websites – ensuring that invaluable scholarly, cultural and scientific resources remain available for future generations.

The UKWAC - comprising The British Library, Joint Information Systems Committee of the Higher and Further Education Councils (JISC), The National Archives, The National Library of Wales, the National Library of Scotland and the Wellcome Trust – will run for an initial period of two years, during which approximately 6,000 websites will be collected and archived.

Consortium members will obtain the permission of Website owners to archive selected sites whilst working collaboratively to explore how to develop compatible selection policies and to investigate the complex technical challenges involved in collecting and archiving web material.

Each consortium member will select and ‘capture’ content relevant to its subject and/or domain. For example, the British Library will archive sites reflecting national culture and events of historical importance. These could include web pages focusing on key events in national life, museum web pages, e-theses, selected blogs to support research material and web-based literary and creative projects by British subjects. The Wellcome Trust will preserve a record of medicine on the web whilst the National Archives will focus on archiving selected materials from six main clusters of government departments. The Scottish and Welsh national libraries will collect material reflecting the culture and history of Scotland and Wales and JISC will preserve its own project websites.

For further information see:

• UK Web Archiving Consortium Press Release

• The UK Web Archiving Consortium Website

• BBC news story – Effort to save UK’s Web Heritage