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Introduction

This year’s IIPC General Assembly and Web Archiving Conference took place at the National Library of Norway in Oslo. 

Many UK Web Archive colleagues from Bodleian Libraries, the British Library, Cambridge University Library and National Library of Scotland attended the Web Archiving Conference both as delegates and presenters. There was a packed programme with a variety of presentation forms and workshops that shared best practices and innovative projects in the world of web archiving. In this blog post they report highlights of their conference experience.

Reflections

Leontien Talboom – Technical Analyst - Cambridge University Libraries

This was my third time attending the WAC conference, but my first time visiting Oslo. It was great to reconnect with colleagues and hear about the range of projects currently happening across the community.

I found the update from Chris Royds and Tom Storrar on the UKGWA particularly interesting, especially their work on using Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to take into account takedown policy processes. The Poster Slam session also provided a good overview of the diverse work taking place in the field.

Together with Andrea Kocsis, I presented some of our recent work on improving access to web archives for different types of users, including readers, the digitally curious, and data users. This builds on previous work, and it was useful to share it in the context of web archives. We’ve also recently published an article on this, which is available here.

Overall, it was a valuable experience, and I appreciated the chance to hear from others and share some of our own work.

Andrea Kocsis - Fellow - National Library of Scotland

Our work covered how user research segmentation in web archives can reshape the way we engage with digital collections. Our talk focused on the power of metadata to create more intuitive and accessible experiences for different audiences. For digital researchers, we highlighted the potential of datasheets for datasets via the case study of the Archive of Tomorrow project, while for the digitally curious, we suggested using Jupyter notebooks with pre-processed enhanced metadata to make exploration easier, introducing the outcomes of The National Librarian’s Research Fellowship in Digital Scholarship 2024-25. For the general reader, we discussed the role of storytelling in turning web archives into something more than just data or collection. We also had the exciting opportunity to announce the “Digital Ghosts - Exploring Scotland’s Heritage on the Web” exhibition we are curating in November 2025 in Edinburgh, bringing together tactile artwork and Scottish web heritage in a fresh, dynamic way. The discussions we had about building inclusive, user-focused web archives were energising and reaffirmed how essential accessibility is for the future of these collections.

Eilidh MacGlone - Web Archivist - National Library of Scotland

The IIPC General Assembly and the conference in Oslo was an opportunity to think again about how the National Library of Scotland contributes to the consortium and the benefit we gain from our membership. IIPC’s events, some available to the public, are a key international membership body for web archiving and a key collecting area for us. Asking questions of the people who maintain tools I use (and recommend to the public!) is something I really value, along with the ability to meet and make plans for better services (watch this space!). A high point was being in the audience for Dr Andrea Kocsis talk, who was the Librarian’s Scholar this year. She presented work to enhance data originally created by my Collections and Research colleague, Trevor Thomson, aiming to help researchers discover content at scale, within the legal deposit environment. I am excited to experience the exhibition, which will physically express some of what we collect, with the artist Dorsey Bromwell Kaufmann at the Being Human Festival held in Edinburgh later this year.

Beatrice Cannelli - Curatorial and Policy Research Officer - Bodleian Libraries

This was my second time attending the IIPC WAC Conference, and once again, it was a fantastic opportunity to connect with colleagues from around the world and gain insights into current developments in the field.

At this year’s conference, I had the pleasure of participating as a speaker in the panel titled Beyond Preservation: Engaging Audiences and Researchers with Web Archives, organised by Eveline Vlassenroot, Peter Mechant, Friedel Geeraert, and Christina Vandendyck. Together with my fellow panellists—Cui Cui, Andrea Kocsis, and Anders Klindt Myrvoll—we explored how web archives can better engage with a broad range of users. Through case studies and collaborative initiatives, we highlighted effective ways in which archives are fostering connections with researchers, communities, and the wider public. The panel sparked valuable discussion on how web archives can enable innovative research methodologies and promote greater public involvement.

Given my particular interest in social media archiving, it is no surprise that one of the sessions that I particularly enjoyed was Curating Social Media. This session offered a rich overview of projects and initiatives in this area, featuring presentations from the British Library, the National Library of Singapore, the National Library and National Archives of Luxembourg, and the National Archives of the Netherlands. I left the session inspired by the diversity of approaches and full of new ideas and perspectives, many of which will certainly be considered in the context of the Algorithmic Archive project I’m currently working on at the Bodleian Libraries.

Gil Hoggarth - Web Archive Technical Lead - British Library

After an earlier potential weather warning, the Oslo conference was held in the National Library of Norway's main building in both nice weather and a warm welcome! It was great to hear the presentations, short talks and general conversation from the Web Archiving community on a wide range of topics - and to catch up with our previous Technical Lead, Andy Jackson. The progress made (or at least in development) by numerous institutions was impressive, from the ever-present quality assurance investigations and technical workshops, to new approaches and new large scale projects - including the host's Building a Research Infrastructure for the Norwegian Web Archive programme. I presented an overview of the impact of the cyber-attack on the British Library and prompted people to consider such an awful event as likely to change an institution's culture as well as its technology. The event ended with a thought provoking insight into how web data can be used by AI to identify public debate in online forums.

Caylin Smith - Head of Digital Preservation - Cambridge University Libraries  

This WAC marked my third time attending the conference, and it’s continued to deliver valuable contributions to the web archiving discipline. I’m part of the Digital Preservation Coaltiion’s Carbon Footprint Task Group, so I attended the talks in the Sustainability session. All of the speakers provided helpful guidance and resources for how to take a sustainable approach to capturing online content and providing access. At CUL, my colleagues and I are factoring the carbon footprint for digital services into the new services we’re setting up for the libraries’ digital collections. The Curating Social Media session was full of useful lessons learned for archiving social media accounts, including government officials and the general public.

Cui Cui - PhD Researcher/ Customer services and Circulation Librarian - University of Sheffield/ Bodleian Libraries University of Oxford

I have been working on participatory web archiving practices for over 5 years as a part time research student, and attending IIPC conference always marks a milestone in my research journey. This year is particularly important as I shared the preliminary findings from interviews with web archivists, researchers and community members. I feel honoured to be invited to a discussion panel to exchange ideas with colleagues and audience, from which I learned so much about archivists’ aspirations and practices. Receiving feedback and listening to practical challenges shared by field experts was incredibly valuable and encouraging. Although I am not a web archivist myself, I could genuinely feel a sense of belonging within the community! I returned feeling inspired and energised, with fresh perspectives and renewed motivation to continue my journey, despite sometimes feeling I have taken too long to complete my research! 

The conference featured numerous high-quality presentations, which I believe are valuable to other professionals. Some practices were innovative and highlighted unique web archiving practices that could be also applicable to other fields of library and archive professions. The closing keynote, Quantifying Complexity: Using Web Data to Decode Online Public Debate, has showcased how web data can be essential in understanding public discourse. It also addressed how marginalised communities could be “silenced” in online debates. The web sphere is a complex space, as I pointed out in my presentation, and it brings another layer of challenge when web archivists work toward a more diverse and representative collection development policy, 

Helena Byrne - Curator of Web Archives - British Library

This year I presented a summary of the National Olympic and Paralympic Committees as well as the 2024 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games collections at the IIPC General Assembly. The General Assembly was on Tuesday 8th April and the main conference was held on Wednesday 9th and Thursday 10th. On day one of the conference I co-facilitated a workshop on Web Archive Collections as Data. This workshop is part of a series of workshops to gather insights into what support is needed to be able to apply the Glam Labs Collections as Data Checklist to web archive content. The first of these workshops was held at DHNB 2025.

As always there were so many good presentations at the conference and lots of corridor conversations that could lead to future collaborative projects. I chaired the Lightning Talk Session #3. This was a great mix of projects ranging from evaluating web archive workflows and addressing English language bias in tools. The last presentation in this session was “What you see no one saw”. This project aims to capture the diversity of web experiences, particularly in relation to web-based advertisements. It is really important that web archives can reflect the diversity of experiences that different people have on the web. However, the project is funded by IMLS and they had the funding withdrawn in the recent restructure of government funding in the US, so it will be interesting to see how it can progress. 

Nicola Bingham - Lead Curator of Web Archives - British Library 

Last month, I had the pleasure of attending my 11th IIPC Web Archiving Conference, hosted this year by the National Library of Norway in Oslo. This was my first time in Norway—and what a fantastic setting it was for such a dynamic and engaging event.

This year’s conference was particularly meaningful for me as I chaired my final session as co-chair of the IIPC’s Content Development Group (CDG), a role I’ve held since 2018. It’s been an incredibly rewarding experience, and although I’m stepping down from the position, I’ll still be involved—after all, no one really retires from the CDG! The group is in excellent hands, with Shereen Tay (National Library of Singapore), Anaïs Crinière-Boizet (Bibliothèque nationale de France), and Melissa Wertheimer (Library of Congress) taking the reins as co-chairs.

I also had the opportunity to present alongside our British Library colleague Jennie Grimshaw in a session titled Innovative Web Archiving Amid Crisis: Leveraging Browsertrix and Hybrid Working Models to Capture the UK General Election 2024. We shared our experience of using a hybrid model to archive the upcoming general election—marking a milestone as it was the first time we used the Browsertrix tool to capture social media content.

The conference was, as always, a space of learning, collaboration, and inspiration. I’m grateful for the opportunity to contribute, to reflect on my time with the CDG, and to look ahead to the evolving landscape of web archiving.

Conclusion

The IIPC General Assembly and Web Archiving Conference 2025 met the high standards set at previous conferences. It is a great opportunity to exchange ideas, learn about innovative projects, and foster collaborations in the field of web archiving. The UK Web Archive colleagues contributed significantly through presentations and active participation. 

By Nicola Bingham, Lead Curator of Web Archives, British Library

Home page of the ve-vjday80.gov.uk website

This year marks a significant national milestone: the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. With Victory in Europe (VE) Day falling on 8th May and Victory over Japan (VJ) Day on 15th August, commemorations are planned across the UK to honour the conclusion of a conflict that reshaped the world.

To document this anniversary, the UK Web Archive is curating a special collection titled "VE / VJ Day 80", which will record how people and communities across the UK are commemorating the end of WWII, from national ceremonies to local grassroots events.

Collection Scope

This curated collection focuses on UK-based websites documenting commemorative events, public activities, and community involvement related to VE/VJ Day 80. Rather than a detailed historical retrospective, the collection aims to reflect contemporary responses and engagement with this anniversary.

Key Aspects of UK Commemorations

The collection includes a wide variety of commemorative themes and activities such as:

· National Events: Organised by groups like the Royal British Legion, including parades and memorials.

· Local Celebrations: Street parties, community gatherings, and regional events.

· Church Services: Remembrance services held nationwide.

· Beacon Lighting: Symbolic ceremonies at dusk.

· Remembrance Readings: Recitals of "The Tribute" and similar dedications.

· Veteran Involvement: Honouring the voices and presence of those who served.

· Contrasting voices or critical perspectives of the commemorations.

Why We Are Archiving This

By collecting these websites now, we’re creating a rich and enduring resource for future researchers, historians, educators, and the general public. This collection will preserve not only official narratives but also grassroots and personal perspectives, reflecting the diversity of the UK’s commemorative landscape.

One recent example of how the UK Web supports research is the work of Dr Liam Markey, whose blog post, published earlier this week, describes how he has used archived web content.

Between 2018 and 2023, Liam completed a PhD at the University of Liverpool in collaboration with the British Library, examining how remembrance practices in Britain, particularly the concept of military victimhood, shape national identity and reflect militaristic thinking. His work highlights the value of digital resources like the UK Web Archive in documenting contemporary remembrance culture.

How You Can Contribute

We welcome nominations of websites, blogs, and social media accounts that reflect VE/VJ Day 80 commemorations and perspectives.

Are you organising a public or community event?

Are you sharing your thoughts or experiences online?

If so, we’d love to hear from you.

Please email your suggestions to: [email protected] 

Although the UK Web Archive website is currently offline, our team is actively capturing web content using remotely hosted systems, ensuring this material is preserved for the future.

Here are a few examples of sites already being archived:

Royal British Legion – Remembering the End of WWII (https://www.britishlegion.org.uk/getinvolved/events/remembranceevents/rememberingtheendofthesecondworldwar)

VE Day 80 Community Events (https://www.veday80.org.uk/)

VE/VJ Day 80 (https://ve-vjday80.gov.uk/)

English Cathedrals – VE Day Services (https://www.englishcathedrals.co.uk/latestnews/veday808thmay2025asharedmomentofcelebration/)

Breckland Council – Remembrance Grants & Readings (https://www.breckland.gov.uk/article/24080/VEVJDay80AnniversaryGrants)

Royal Navy – WWII Veterans’ Stories (https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news/2025/january/06/20250106ww2veteransurgedtocomeforwardtomark80thanniversary)

Beacon Lighting Guide (Glinton Parish Council) (https://glintonpc.gov.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2024/07/VEDay80AnniversaryGuidev19.pdf)

VE Day Blog Posts from the British Library

This is one of multiple blog posts being published across the British Library blogs this week:

UK Web Archive: https://blogs.bl.uk/webarchive/2025/05/digital-memory-and-the-militarised-past.html 

European Studies: https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2025/05/remembering-sacrifice-celebrating-freedom.html

Newsroom: https://blogs.bl.uk/thenewsroom/2025/04/ve-day-in-the-news.html 

Social Science: https://blogs.bl.uk/socialscience/2025/05/ve-day-voices-from-history-.html 

Untold Lives: https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2025/04/children-in-war-time.html 

By Dr Liam Markey, University of Liverpool

This blog post will explore the immediate legacies of the First World War centenary in Britain, looking towards the culmination of the ongoing commemoration of the Second World War’s 80^th anniversary, with VE and VJ day being commemorated in May and August of this year respectively. It describes how discourse surrounding both world wars has shaped British attitudes and behaviours concerning conflict and military service over the last century, and how changing demographics may serve to consolidate these beliefs in the coming century. Special attention is paid to mixed media texts collected and held by the British Library, demonstrating the significance of the UK Web Archive (UKWA) in particular as a repository of counter-culture discourse in the context of British militarism.

A Second Century of Remembrance
As a response to the centenary of the First World War, between 2018 and 2023 I undertook a PhD at the University of Liverpool in collaboration with the British Library. My research cast a critical gaze upon the act of remembrance in Britain since the end of the First World War, with special attention paid to the concept of ‘military victimhood’ and its potential to mediate militaristic modes of thinking. The project was embarked upon in the wake of the national commemoration of the centenary of the First World War, a watershed moment in Britain which prompted the production of a myriad of state-funded cultural and educational events.

As David Cameron announced in 2012, British commemoration of the centenary would serve to,

“provide the foundations upon which to build an enduring cultural and educational legacy, to put young people front and centre in our commemoration and to ensure that the sacrifice and service of a hundred years ago is still remembered in a hundred years’ time.”

While such an important historical moment arguably provides an invaluable opportunity for critical reflection, my research ascertained that, largely, the centenary instead engendered a consolidation of, and recommitment to, traditional forms of remembrance. Ultimately, the foundations that the centenary provided were not ground-breaking, rather they had already been established during, and enacted since, the end of the First World War itself. This next century of commemoration, as envisioned by Cameron, would be cast in the image of the last, anchored upon the rituals and practices of what is referred to as the ‘1919 model’.

This in and of itself can be regarded as potentially problematic, as my research, and the work of many other scholars, demonstrates the proclivity of such forms of commemoration to perpetuate the core tenets of a militaristic ideology; seeing war glorified, justified, and normalised. This is largely achieved through the sanitisation of war’s power to victimise, with emphasis placed on an idealised vision of warfare and military service. ‘Official’ or ‘dominant’ narratives of commemoration also emphasise the unifying power the rituals of the 1919 model, such as the two-minute silence or the wearing of a poppy, have among the British population and the positive effect enactment has in relation to British victims of war. Commemorative discourse overwhelmingly emphasises notions of debt that the public are duty-bound to fulfil, while avoiding direct reference to war’s inherent violence and propensity to produce victims.

This depiction of warfare present in commemorative practices was chosen to serve a very specific purpose, as a way of alleviating the suffering of the bereaved by acknowledging that their loved ones died in service of a noble ideal. However, with much, if not all, of those for whom the 1919 model was created having now passed from the British population, sentiments of military service as being inherently glorious, core to dominant commemorative narratives, serve to sanitise war for generations of individuals with no personal experience of war’s traumatic reality.

Alongside overt references to war as glorious and necessary within dominant commemorative narratives, my research also uncovered the role of the ‘commemorative deviant’. These are individuals who choose to commemorate war in a manner outside of the official purview, and as such are vilified in the national mainstream media, encouraging others to condemn rather than replicate such behaviours. The majority of such depictions come from print texts taken from three mainstream British newspapers: The Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror, and The Times, collected for analysis from the British Library’s Newsroom. These newspaper texts serve to reinforce specific beliefs and behaviours concerning remembrance over the last century that ultimately perpetuate, rather than challenge, militaristic notions.

Mainstream narratives purport that since the end of the First World War commemoration has been static, with its enactment based on a general consensus, and those rare deviant individuals represent an anomaly rather than a pattern of behaviour visible throughout the last century. However, through access to the UKWA, and close collaboration with the UKWA team, I was able to create a unique digital dataset which challenged such notions and provided a far more expansive view of commemoration as enacted in Britain since 1918. Beyond official black and white narratives of morally righteous consensus and villainous deviance, digital texts demonstrated the complexity of British remembrance. They provided an insight into ‘ground-up’ commemorative initiatives, uncovering attitudes more often than not absent from the mainstream media due to their potential to undermine notions key to the proliferation of dominant commemorative narratives.

Websites collected by the UKWA demonstrated the rich variety of methods by which war has been commemorated in Britain since the First World War, with many serving to challenge and deprivilege assumptions inherent within dominant narratives. These ‘counter’-narratives illustrated the vastness of the category of military victims, many of whom, such as civilians or enemy soldiers, are absent from mainstream commemorative discourse, and whose existence serve to undermine notions of militarism. Many instances of ‘deviancy’ in mainstream thought became in this context simply an alternative perspective, which ultimately facilitated the broadening of knowledge concerning the enactment of British remembrance over the last century.

Take for instance the existence of the white poppy, a symbol denigrated by newspaper texts in the sample as disrespectful and a direct contributor to the suffering of military victims, such as disabled ex-servicemen or the bereaved. Digital texts provide expansive contextual information, highlighting that the white poppy was itself incepted by ex-servicemen and relatives of the war dead as a commitment to peace, remembrance of all victims of war, and as a direct challenge to a militaristic ideology. Digital texts also highlight the existence of otherwise marginalised individuals, such as dissenting ex-servicemen, conscientious objectors, soldiers ‘shot at dawn’, or soldiers severely disfigured as a result of their military service.

Alongside an expanded purview regarding representation of military victims, the digital texts collected from the UKWA also provided access to the thoughts and feelings of the average British citizen, many of which clash with mainstream declarations of consensus and unity. Message boards and amateur websites serve as a medium for dissenting viewpoints, exhibiting the democratising power of the internet. Ultimately, the UKWA provided a much fuller picture of remembrance than the one evident in mainstream media, providing a platform for individuals who have not featured at the forefront of commemoration over the last century, but are nevertheless integral components in wider British narratives of war.

Second World War 80^th Anniversary

Seven years on from the centenary of the First World War, we now find ourselves approaching the culmination of the first decade of the second century of British remembrance, and at the apex of the Second World War’s 80^th anniversary, concluding in the commemoration of the victories in Europe and Japan; VE Day on 8^th May, and VJ Day on 15^th August respectively. Preceding the commemoration of victory in 1945, we have also seen other major historical moments of the Second World War commemorated since 2019, such as the Battle of Britain and the D-Day landings.

Thus far, these tentpole national commemorative events have largely been celebrations of victory rather than meditations on the destructive nature of war. Unlike the First, which has largely been portrayed in popular culture as a futile endeavour, the Second World War stands apart as a just war, a struggle between good and evil. In recent years, it is through the lens of the Second World War that official narratives of war in Britain have been constructed, providing a useful template with which previous and later conflicts can be created in the guise of. Such a foregrounding of a single war in mainstream narratives can result in the depoliticising and decontextualising of conflict, providing an ahistorical view of war as a natural and inevitable continuum. While responses to the First World War during its centenary did in part deal with the ambiguous nature of its necessity in being fought, the Second World War is far more widely accepted as entirely justified, as a national struggle for survival. While there is no doubt that defeat of fascism is a cause worthy of celebration, it must not serve to enable a sanitisation of war’s reality by colouring our perception of conflict overall.

The 80^th anniversary of the Second World War may well enable dominant narratives of war to become further entrenched in the national psyche, particularly as more and more individuals with first-hand experience of total war pass from the population. For a new generation of Britons, whose primary connection to war is through the mass media, and indeed commemorative events, there is a real danger that a sanitised and depoliticised view of warfare will become the norm, especially through an ever more celebratory depiction adopted by mainstream commemorative initiatives.

As with the First World War centenary, this is where the vital role of repositories such as the UKWA can come into play, providing alternative viewpoints upon the topic of war and ensuring that a wide variety of voices are heard, rather than obscured by the fanfare of national enterprises. In light of the 80^th anniversaries of VE and VJ day, the UKWA will curate a special collection documenting events and activities relating to the end of the Second World War, and invite the public to directly submit relevant websites by emailing [email protected].

Through the creation of such a collection, the UKWA will secure an invaluable repository of digital texts, which will not only serve as a preservation of an important historical event, but also as a vital resource for future scholars. Provided will be a unique insight into national forms of commemoration alongside those enacted by individuals and local communities. Digital texts held in the UKWA collections were central to my own research, offering a window into otherwise marginalised and unseen discourses, demonstrating the vast breadth of public responses to and enactments of remembrance in Britain since the end of the First World War. I hope that, moving forwards into this second century of commemoration, the UKWA’s important work will continue, facilitating significant reflection on remembrance for future generations.

Dr Liam Markey is a Research Associate at the University of Liverpool’s Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology. He completed his PhD in collaboration with the British Library in 2023 and is currently working on a British Academy funded project exploring ethical digital public histories of prisoners and the legacy of enslavement in Georgia, USA.

[email protected]

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