UK Web Archiving Consortium
Encyclopedia
The UK Web Archiving Consortium (UKWAC) is a consortium of six leading UK institutions working collaboratively on a pilot operation archiving
selected UK websites. UKWAC consists of the British Library
, the Joint Information Systems Committee
(JISC), the National Archives (UK), the National Library of Wales
, the National Library of Scotland
, and the Wellcome Library
.
Consortium members started to archive selected websites in 2005 using PANDAS software, developed by the National Library of Australia(once appropriate permissions have been obtained from website owners) relevant to their interests. For example, the Wellcome Library focusses on collecting medical sites, whilst the National Library of Wales collects sites that reflect life in contemporary Wales. The British Library has a broad policy to collect sites of cultural, historical and political importance to the UK.
Once sites have been archived, catalogued and checked for completeness, they are made freely accessible through the UK Web Archive website. Users are able to search the archive by keyword or URL, or browse using broad subject headings.
Within the Archive there are Special Collections of archived sites grouped as representative of a particular event, or topic.
The Consortium itself was wound up in 2010, and the role of UKWAC as a focus for web archiving in the UK has been absorbed by the Digital Preservation Coalition
as its Web Archiving and Preservation Task Force. The work of selective archiving continues, and the results are publicly available in the UK Web Archive, and in the public archives of the Consortium's former members.
As of December 2010 the UK Web Archive contains about 8,000 titles - and about 32,000 instances of these titles (6-monthly snapshots of each web site for which permission to archive was granted).
Web archiving
Web archiving is the process of collecting portions of the World Wide Web and ensuring the collection is preserved in an archive, such as an archive site, for future researchers, historians, and the public. Due to the massive size of the Web, web archivists typically employ web crawlers for...
selected UK websites. UKWAC consists of the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
, the Joint Information Systems Committee
Joint Information Systems Committee
JISC is a United Kingdom non-departmental public body whose role is to support post-16 and higher education and research by providing leadership in the use of ICT in learning, teaching, research and administration...
(JISC), the National Archives (UK), the National Library of Wales
National Library of Wales
The National Library of Wales , Aberystwyth, is the national legal deposit library of Wales; one of the Welsh Government sponsored bodies.Welsh is its main medium of communication...
, the National Library of Scotland
National Library of Scotland
The National Library of Scotland is the legal deposit library of Scotland and is one of the country's National Collections. It is based in a collection of buildings in Edinburgh city centre. The headquarters is on George IV Bridge, between the Old Town and the university quarter...
, and the Wellcome Library
Wellcome Library
The Wellcome Library is founded on the collection formed by Sir Henry Wellcome , whose personal wealth allowed him to create one of the most ambitious collections of the 20th century. Henry Wellcome's interest was the history of medicine in a broad sense and included subjects like alchemy or...
.
Consortium members started to archive selected websites in 2005 using PANDAS software, developed by the National Library of Australia(once appropriate permissions have been obtained from website owners) relevant to their interests. For example, the Wellcome Library focusses on collecting medical sites, whilst the National Library of Wales collects sites that reflect life in contemporary Wales. The British Library has a broad policy to collect sites of cultural, historical and political importance to the UK.
Once sites have been archived, catalogued and checked for completeness, they are made freely accessible through the UK Web Archive website. Users are able to search the archive by keyword or URL, or browse using broad subject headings.
Within the Archive there are Special Collections of archived sites grouped as representative of a particular event, or topic.
The Consortium itself was wound up in 2010, and the role of UKWAC as a focus for web archiving in the UK has been absorbed by the Digital Preservation Coalition
Digital Preservation Coalition
The Digital Preservation Coalition is a UK-based non-profit limited company which seeks to secure the preservation of digital resources in the UK and internationally to secure the global digital memory and knowledge base.-History:...
as its Web Archiving and Preservation Task Force. The work of selective archiving continues, and the results are publicly available in the UK Web Archive, and in the public archives of the Consortium's former members.
As of December 2010 the UK Web Archive contains about 8,000 titles - and about 32,000 instances of these titles (6-monthly snapshots of each web site for which permission to archive was granted).
External links
- UK Web Archive - selected websites of cultural interest to the UK, hosted by The British Library
- Digital Preservation Coalition - Web Archiving and Preservation Task Force
- UK Government Web Archive similar site for government sites only, run by UK National Archives