Web Archiving

The World Wide Web is the primary delivery mechanism for digital content. Preservation administrators need to be familiar with the tools and appropriate techniques for preservation of information delivered through the "surface" Web (static Web pages, blogs, E-mail discussion lists, etc.) and information that is part of the "deep" Web (e.g., databases, streaming media, and authenticated resources). Once Web content is captured and brought into a preservation environment, preservation administrators are responsible for transforming them into persistent formats and data structures. This 1.5 credit course exposes students to existing and emerging tools for capturing Web content with heavy emphasis on laboratory practice using the current generation of Web crawlers. Students also learn about current preservation formats and how to migrate various types of Web-based content from their native formats to persistent formats.