Tell us what you think about the UK Web Archive

If you are a postgraduate researcher or a university lecturer we would like to get your feedback on the research value of the UK Web Archive. It doesn’t even matter if you have already used the archive or not.

We have commissioned an independent research agency – IRN Research – to gather information on the needs of archive users and potential users. If you would like to help shape the future development of the archive please register your interest.

In the next few weeks you will be contacted by a researcher and emailed an online facilitated walkthrough of the archive which will explain how the site works in just a few minutes. Using this walkthrough, you will be asked to answer questions about the content, functions, and tools available and your interest in, and likely use, of the archive.

All your answers will be treated in the strictest confidence and all those taking part will have the chance to win one of a number of £20 book tokens.

To take part in the research, please register.

We've recently implemented some changes to our search functionality in the UK Web Archive, particularly for full text searching.

We first enabled full text searching in the web archive a few years ago. This was a great leap forwards from title searches alone, but it was often time consuming to wade through the results. We harvest sites on a recurring basis, so the search results often contained a lot of 'noise' and duplicate results as the same instance often appeared several times over.

Search results are now grouped by domain, making it easier to immediately see which websites contain references to the search term(s) and easily identifying the context in which the search term appears. For domain results we group URLs by date. This eliminates duplicate entries in results but still provides temporal access when there is more than one instance captured.

We have improved our content type filter, making it quicker and easier to filter by content type(s). Search results are now grouped by content type, separating 'documents' from 'images' and 'multimedia', in recognition of the fact that people will often be searching for a specific type of content. This is still in development and we know that it doesn't always work perfectly - images can appear in the documents tab when they are served from a single html page, for example. We're keen to hear from people about this feature, and whether they think it's useful.

We've also started to roll out some social media integration. It's now easy to share any of the resources in the search results, using the links provided under each one.

And finally, you can now use the Advanced Search tab to filter by archiving organisation. For example, if you're only interested in sites archived by the Wellcome Library, you can specify this prior to running the search. Only sites selected by thesethis institutions will then be included in your search results. 

We've lots more development planned over the next few years. If there are any particular features or functionality that you'd like to see, please do get in touch.

Between Friday the 23rd and Sunday the 25th of March, we are upgrading the technical infrastructure that the UK Web Archive services rely upon.

To perform this upgrade, a short break in service is required. The UK Web Archive will be unavailable for part or all of this period. We will be back up and running on Monday the 26th of March.

We apologise if this causes you any inconvenience.

The British Library has issued a Press Release on the Consultation on the Draft Legal Deposit Libraries (non-print works) Regulations 2013, recognising the importance of the legislation for web archive collections.

Since the introduction of the  Legal Deposit Libraries Act in 2003, the Legal Deposit Libraries have been working with the Government and publishers on the necessary regulations to allow the collection of digital material published in the UK on and offline. Without these regulations, a great deal of digital information about UK life and records of major events of the 21st century are at risk of being lost to the 'digital black hole'. 

The regulations are designed to 'ensure the Legal Deposit Libraries provide a national archive of the UK’s non-print published material'. This includes websites and would enable the web archive to begin comprehensive crawls of the UK domain, made accessible from the reading rooms of the Legal Deposit Libraries.

The consultation is open until May 18th.

Did you know that anyone can nominate websites for the UK Web Archive? We're exploring different ways to make it easier for people to nominate websites.

For several years now we've had a public nominations form on our website. However, we know that filling in a form can be a little daunting sometimes, even when it's only small and especially if you've not much time. So for the past few weeks we've been looking into additional options for accepting or submitting nominations.

Yesterday, we ran a small experiment using Twitter and invited followers to simply tweet the details of their nomination to @ukwebarchive. Our reasoning was simple: 

1. It's very, very easy to share a link on Twitter
2. So many people and organisations are already on Twitter and regularly share links with their followers
3. It's fairly easy for us to monitor nominations coming in this way

We tweeted several times throughout the day about this and are pleased with the response. We had a small number of nominations on the day and several ReTweets, reaching a wider audience that our followers alone. It will be interesting to see if nominations continue to be tweeted when we aren't actively encouraging them. We need to evaluate the day in more detail, particularly with regards to how (and when) we respond, the types of nominations we receive, and how we can factor this into our current workflow. At the moment though, it's certainly worth more investigation.

We've also thinking about producing a browser plug-in that would  automatically populate a small number of fields with details of the site people are visiting, and submit them directly to us as a packaged nomination. This needs further thought, but we'd be interested to hear from people who'd like to use a plug-in like this. 

Finally, we're planning to overhaul the nominations form on the UK Web Archive website. This will make sure we're only asking people for information we really need, and which will help us to better assess their nomination.

So why not drop us a line, or a tweet, with your nomination? Alternatively, if you have any other ideas on how you'd like to nominate sites, why not leave a comment below?  We're always happy to hear new suggestions. 

The 2012 London Olympic & Paralympic Games have already generated a huge presence on the Web. To reflect and record this momentous event, the British Library’s web archiving team are building a special collection of websites: the London 2012 Collection. 

We have been selecting Olympic related websites since 2008, though some of the content in the collection is even older and dates back to 2005 when London was one of the hopeful cities bidding to host the Games. The collection is intended to reflect not only the event itself but all aspects of the Games including their social and economic impact on London and the UK. Websites include those of official bodies such as London2012.com and the British Olympic Association as well as those of UK athletes, local councils, opinion forums and the Games’ corporate sponsors. 

Alternative or dissenting voices are included to ensure a cohesive collection that represents the full spectrum of contemporary opinion about the Games. For example, several blogs and commentaries reflect concerns over the London Olympic overspend including the 2012 Watchdog from the Taxpayer's Alliance which monitors the costs to the taxpayer of the 2012 Games. Ken Frost's Olympic Blogspot monitors issues such as political developments, Olympics executive’s salaries and environmental concerns.

Other items in the Olympics Collection relate to arts and culture inspired by the Games. For example, the V&A has recently acquired a torch from the 1948 London Olympics, which is thought to have been used on the Belgium leg of its trip across Europe.

Currently, around 250 websites are already available to view in the UK Web Archive’s Olympic Collection. New websites are being added all the time and will continue to be archived until the end of 2012 to record the impact of the Games beyond the main event. Websites have been selected by subject specialists or curators across the British Library as well as members of the public. If you would like to nominate a site for inclusion in the archive we would be very pleased to hear from you. 

Nicola Johnson
Web Archivist, The British Library 

 

The following is a guest post from Jo Stanley, author and blogger. We've been archiving Jo's blog in the UK Web Archive since April 2011.

I’m Jo Stanley and I call myself a creative historian and occasionally ‘a lifestory midwife’. People who worked on ships are my special area of historical interest. One of the books that will come out of all my hundreds of hours at the BL is Risk! Women on the Wartime Seas, a history of the women who were at sea in surprising numbers in WW1 and WW2 (Yale University Press). 

A lot of my products are based on the stories people tell me. But I use the British Library for my background research: autobiographies, histories, theoretical interpretations. I’ve been a fan – no other word will do - for about thirty years and remember my excitement when first I registered. My appreciation of the Library’s preserving role increased a hundred-fold when I was given a behind-the-scenes tour at Colindale.

In 2011 when staff from the UK Web Archive at BL emailed the news that my blog was one of those selected to be archived for posterity that really gave me a boost. And it changed my blogging practices. I write more frequently and more carefully, because of a greater sense of its significance. My entries are now made at least twice a month. I spend hours, no longer minutes, writing each entry as vividly and elegantly as I can; I make more effort to explain significances and acronyms. 

Having your blog harvested feels an oddly alienated experience. It’s like being a rose that knows the gardener is plucking it, but never feels the secateurs nor sees itself finally arranged in the vase with all the other blooms. So it really helped when the Head of Web Archiving Helen Hockx-Yu took the time to show me how the process worked. In her office papered with Chinese poems on the Underground I saw the crawler in operation, scuttling round and scooping up other’s blogs and websites like some diligent crab from a William Gibson sci-fi story. Finding out the program’s name, Heritrix, seemed to make the process feel more comprehensible. OK, it’s just another clever piece of software, like Photoshop. Hearing that I was one of the 10,000 websites owners and bloggers helped me see my in/significance within the UK Web Archive; it’s a bit like looking your house via Google Earth. And understanding that my ‘donation’ was collected every six months helped me get a sense that there was someone listening.

Books I’ve written have been in the library for years but having my blog saved there feels extra special. 

 

Crazy about computer games? Then nominate websites for our new video games collection!

An exciting new collection is underway to preserve information about computer games developed and played in the UK. It will include resources that document gaming culture and the impact that video games have had on wider society.

The collection is being developed by digital curation and preservation colleagues from across the Library, with additional input from staff at the National Videogame Archive. The National Videogame Archive is a collection of hardware, original software, design documents, marketing material and fan-generated ephemera housed within the National Media Museum and managed in partnership with Nottingham Trent and Bath Spa Universities. Some of the collection items from the National Video Game Archive are on public display in the Museum’s Games Lounge, which is an interactive gallery featuring vintage console and arcade games.

The collection will include games (e.g. disk images, executables of remakes) and information about games (e.g. maps, walkthroughs, FAQs). If we don’t capture it now and get it in the archive, then much of it is at real risk of being lost forever. We’re also very interested in collecting resources that discuss the cultural and societal impact of computer games, for example research on the impact of games on children’s development.

So how can you help? We are calling all games designers, players and enthusiasts to suggest the websites which you think should be preserved. These may include online games, forums, enthusiast sites, FAQs/walkthroughs, advertising, emulation software, research/education resources etc. We’re interested in all sorts of games and aim to capture a comprehensive view of computer game development and gaming culture in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

If you know of any sites that you think should be included, then please let us know by filling in the nominations form. Mark your entry ‘Videogame collection nomination’ in the justification field, as well as entering any other information that might help us to appraise the site. Thanks!

 Stella Wisdom
Digital Curator, The British Library