[-empyre-] Using web archives (in the year 2525 and all that)

["Paul Koerbin" <pkoerbin@nla.gov.au>]

Thanks for the interesting comments coming in about using web archives.

Steve's point about using web archives outside of the way they are
organised is a very important one. If the NLA builds its PANDORA Archive
this is obviously going to be organised in such a way to meet the
Library's mission and needs. While I believe we are learning to
challenge our traditional concept of the document, nevertheless for
practical purposes we still see the Library's role as preserving the
"published" documentary heritage. Of course as we have found, defining
what is "published" on the web is a real challenge and we seem to really
get no further in terms of a useful definition than saying anything that
is made available is published. Now "published" in this broad definition
and in the context of the web includes personal and corporate records
etc that in the print world would not be the concern of the Library. The
notion of what is published has become somewhat fuzzy for us to
articulate and therefore clearly define our area of responsibility (vis
a vis traditional "archive" institutions). The NLA nevertheless needs to
declare its area of primary responsibility and it is not necessarily the
whole Australian domain because of the nature of what published. On the
other hand it does become very difficult to define clearly what is and
what is not within our sphere of interest and responsibility.

So ... we build the web archive that we are able to (with the inevitable
conceptual, technical and resource constraints) but this is not
necessarily organised in a way that will easily support any or all
future (or contemporary) user. As the researchers at the IIPC
Researchers meeting made clear, they want to analyse the sociology of
the web and this is not at all well represented in the organisation
(deconstructed as it is) of an archive like PANDORA. Nevertheless, that
is what they may have to use if that is all there is!

I think what may happen, especially as purpose built freely available
archiving tools and standards are developed by such initiatives as the
IIPC, is that those with specific perspectives on the web may undertake
their own archiving activity, be it large or small. The fascinating work
of Hanno Lecher on the Archive for Chinese Studies has already been
mentioned. I have also found some of the thinking of Steve Sneider on
"web sphere" analysis very interesting http://people.sunyit.edu/~steve/.
So, we might end up with not just a flat grid of archives but ones of
various dimensions, overlapping in their coverage of time, depth, extent
etc. Could be chaotic and a challenge for the researcher, but it could
also facilitate a multifaceted if by no means complete picture of the
web. 

Steve also mentioned the very practical issue of actually using content
of we archives  - cutting and pasting. Well, when we archive in PANDORA
we seek permission to copy the files and make them accessible but don't
take over any copyright of the original. In fact we highlight the
original publisher's copyright statement on our archive title entry
pages. I guess then it is a matter between the user and the owner of the
intellectual content. Of course this is complicated by the ease by which
you can copy and paste the digital item, so you are also using the
creators code and mark-up etc. In our Archive, however, changes have
already been made to the html by the process of harvesting (well at
least to the copy of the archived resource that is made available to the
public); and indeed the fact that what we are capturing is a browser
delivered version (not necessarily what the creator wrote in terms of
the mark-up) one wonders if this does allow for more generous use? I
certainly don't know and not being a lawyer I would not proffer an
opinion. I suppose however that reality of the ease of publication,
transmission and copying in the digital world argues for a more
expansive digital commons and we see in the Creative Commons initiative.
But then I suppose it depends on whose interests are at stake. Without
naming names, we had to remove an iconic web site from the PANDORA
Archive when lawyers for the multinational that now owned it discovered
we had archived it (with, I hasten to add,  an earlier permission to
undertake the archiving). Arguments to the publisher that we were merely
preserving the sites with no commercial interest of our own in it
(indeed it could be argued we were promoting the iconic product in
question!) fell of deaf ears. Its a funny old world.

Paul




Paul Koerbin
Supervisor
Digital Archiving Section
National Library of Australia

(02) 6262 1411
pkoerbin@nla.gov.au