SPEC Kit 329: Managing Born-Digital Special Collections and Archival Materials · 163
University of Michigan
BHL Web Archives: Methodology for the Acquisition of Content
http://bentley.umich.edu/dchome/webarchives/BHL_WebArchives_Methodology.pdf
August 2, 2011 2
Introduction
The Bentley Historical Library’s Digital Curation Division has developed a
methodology and workflow for the acquisition of content. These procedures are
based on the available features of the California Digital Library (CDL)’s Web
Archiving Service (WAS) as well as standard archival practices (such as appraisal
and description). This document provides an overview of the Bentley Historical
Library’s methodology for website preservation.
The actual process of website preservation may be broken down into three main
steps:
1. Identification of the crawl target
2. Configuration of the crawler settings
3. Contextualization of content
Guided by collecting priorities, surveys of relevant websites, and knowledge of
significant individuals and organizations, archivists identify potential targets for
preservation. By standardizing the configuration of web crawler settings and
addition of metadata and descriptions, archivists are able to ensure that websites
are preserved in a manner that is consistent, efficient, and cost-effective.
Given the fast pace of change in web archiving technology and ongoing development
of features and functionalities in WAS, this methodology document will be reviewed
on an annual basis and revised accordingly.
University of Michigan
BHL Web Archives: Methodology for the Acquisition of Content
http://bentley.umich.edu/dchome/webarchives/BHL_WebArchives_Methodology.pdf
August 2, 2011 2
Introduction
The Bentley Historical Library’s Digital Curation Division has developed a
methodology and workflow for the acquisition of content. These procedures are
based on the available features of the California Digital Library (CDL)’s Web
Archiving Service (WAS) as well as standard archival practices (such as appraisal
and description). This document provides an overview of the Bentley Historical
Library’s methodology for website preservation.
The actual process of website preservation may be broken down into three main
steps:
1. Identification of the crawl target
2. Configuration of the crawler settings
3. Contextualization of content
Guided by collecting priorities, surveys of relevant websites, and knowledge of
significant individuals and organizations, archivists identify potential targets for
preservation. By standardizing the configuration of web crawler settings and
addition of metadata and descriptions, archivists are able to ensure that websites
are preserved in a manner that is consistent, efficient, and cost-effective.
Given the fast pace of change in web archiving technology and ongoing development
of features and functionalities in WAS, this methodology document will be reviewed
on an annual basis and revised accordingly.
