A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Digital Preservation / UK Web Focus Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath, BA2 7AY URL UKOLN is supported by:

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk About UKOLN / UK Web Focus UKOLN: Centre of expertise ion digital information management About 30 FTEs Based at University of Bath Funded by JISC and Resource, with additional funding from JISC, EU, etc. project work UK Web Focus: Adviser to UK HE and FE and (since 1 Aug 03) cultural heritage sector in England & Wales on Web issues Project manager for JISC-funded QA Focus work and of NOF-digi Technical Advisory Service

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Work In Area Of Preservation UKOLN activities include: Membership of DPC (Digital Preservation Coalition) – see Production of What's New newsletter - Study on "Collecting and preserving the World Wide Web" – see Participation on forum on Web archiving in March 2003 – see Michael Day is active in this area – see publications at

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk What's Happening In UK? In the UK: JISC very active in this area:  Involvement in DPC  Neil Beagrie is JISC's Assistant Director (Preservation and Resources)  Interest in preservation of scholarly reports, scientific data, … Cultural Heritage sector have an interest:  British Library  NOF-digitise projects, … Interest at government level:  British Library  Preservation of 1997 election Web sites  Post Sept 11 awareness of importance  DPC launch outside Westminster

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk What's Happening Globally? Much interest: Preservation workshops e.g. ECDL:  National initiatives:  Australia:  Finland:  France: See Internet Archive:  See

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Internet Archive

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Who's Problem? Should preservation of Web sites be carried out: By Web site owner's themselves By owner, funder, … By a national body (e.g. British Library) By an international body (e.g. Internet Archive) By subject specialists …

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk How To Preserve Web site preservation can be carried out: By automated harvesting of Web sites (a client-side view) By depositing (a service-side view) A combined approach An automated approach can be used to harvest all Web sites within a domain (e.g. all ox.ac.uk Web sites, all.ac.uk, …) Depositing requires Web site owner to upload resource to a repository An automated approach can be used to harvest all Web sites within a domain (e.g. all ox.ac.uk Web sites, all.ac.uk, …) Depositing requires Web site owner to upload resource to a repository

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Challenges Harvesting is getting more difficult: Personalised resources Dynamic Resources Client-side features Backend features 9e.g. search facility Diversity of resources, formats, etc. Other issues: Copyright, IPR, accessibility, defamation, … What do you want to do? Provide access to static resources Preserve look and feel Provide access to Web site functionality This is not an area to jump into lightly

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk But There Is A Need WebWatching Telematics For Libraries Project Web Sites Of 88 EU-funded project Web sites, 23 have disappeared in Jan 2000 See WebWatching eLib Project Web Sites Of 71 eLib project Web sites, 5 had disappeared in Jan 2001 See

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk It Gets Worse! Webtechs.com Software company which hosted early HTML validation service In 1998/99 confusion over payment of domain name March 1999 company receives many messages saying validation service is now a porn site Over 30,000 links to Web site! Sept 1999 porn company agrees to sell domain name back to Webtech

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk The Embarrassment Still Exists The hijacked Web site can still be accessed using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Note that the archived Web site contains JavaScript (and Active X controls?) which could delete data on the viewer's PC See

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk What I'm Involved In I am involved in: Raising awareness of importance of Web site preservation Seeking to ensure that project-funded Web sites are aware of the potential porn site time bomb Seeking to ensure that projects consider 'mothballing' issues See: See:

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Where To From Here? Possible options: Harvest appropriate Web sites. NB httrack is a highly regarded, easy-to-use open source tool for capturing Web sites –, but remember need to provide capture metadata It's too big a problem It's a big problem, but we can provide advice to minimise problems It's a big problem, but someone needs to tackle it, and we've willing to take a lead from a subject perspective We need to read the reports, contribute to the list, …