Web archives as a data resource for digital scholars

• DOI: 10.1007/s42803-019-00007-7
• Publication Date: 2019-03-08T17:11:50Z
• Authors: Eveline Vlassenroot; Sally Chambers; Emmanuel Di Pretoro; Friedel Geeraert; Gerald Haesendonck; Alejandra Michel; Peter Mechant
• Keywords: Digital Preservation; Scope (computer science); Web presence

The aim of this article is to provide an exploratory analysis the landscape web archiving activities in Europe. Our contribution, based on desk research, and complemented with data from interviews representatives European heritage institutions, provides a descriptive overview state-of-the-art national It written for broad interdisciplinary audience, including cultural professionals, IT specialists managers, humanities social science researchers. legal, technical operational aspects value archives as born-digital primary research resources are both explored. In addition investigating organisations involved scope their programmes, curatorial process, such selection content, tools used provision access discovery services also considered. Furthermore, general policies related programmes analysed. concludes by offering four important issues that digital scholars should consider when using historical source. Whilst recognising study was limited sample only nine archives, can nevertheless offer some useful insights into technical, policy-related archiving. Finally, paper could function stepping stone more extensive qualitative research.