Archiving Web Resources

The conference begins with a welcome from Jan Fullerton, the Director-General of the National Library of Australia. She sets the scene by noting the relevance of Web materials as yet another slice of contemporary culture which needs to be archived by national libraries - but of course the archiving of such material is complex and unprecedented, especially also because of the significant increase in the volume of material. Therefore, cooperative approaches to archiving are required.

The NLA's PANDORA archive of Web resources is now being recognised as a significant resource by UNESCO, and has been nominated for the UNESCO world register for the memory of the world. This is a significant achievement and points to the significance of what the NLA has already managed to do. Other national libraries around the world are also involved in Web archiving now, of course, with often some very different approaches to the process - this variety is interesting in itself. Now, of course, there is the International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC), which aims to interoperate such approaches.

Jan now hands over to Helen Williams, Secretary in the federal Department of Communication, Information Technology and the Arts (DoCITA), who will open the conference. She notes the now international recognition of the need for Web content preservation and archiving, and the various projects already working towards that end. This is not simply a cultural issue, however - it connects into business and government usage of the Net as well (how, for example, are governmental online publications archived?). There is also a significant demand for a broad range of information to be available online from official Websites, and it is important to use standard and stable formats for such information.

On the whole, beyond the National Library, the National Archives and other institutions (e.g. in specific areas such as film and music archiving) have an important role to play here as well, and there are some new initiatives currently underway in Australia.

Helen stresses three key principles in this:

1. National digital collections are a key national asset.
2. National collecting intitutions need to show leadership.
3. The collaborative approach needs to be enhanced and emphasised.

There is a recurring question around legal deposit schemes here - is there a way to extend such schemes to digital content? Clearly this isn't feasible for all Web content, but perhaps at least for music and film?