UK Government Web Archive Progress
February 26, 2010
Short honk: I found “UK Web Archive Will Offer Just 1% of Web Sites by 2011” interesting for two reasons. First, the notion of taking a year to build a Web archive struck me as somewhat slow progress. My recollection is that at that rate, it may be difficult to build a sufficient repository to make its usefulness to me evident. New pages and changes are important in my work. Second, I found this comment interesting:
Its UK Web Archive, which was officially launched today, contains just 6,000 of around 8 million UK websites. According to the British Library, on average UK websites have a lifespan of between 44 and 75 days. It also said that at least 10 percent of all UK websites were either lost or replaced by new material every six months. However, under the 2003 Legal Deposit Library Act the group needs to gain permission from the website owner before it can archive the site, which is slowing down the process dramatically.
When I read this, I can understand the frustration that some commercial companies must feel when government agencies decide to create certain collections of information. On the other hand, I see only opportunity. With the UK approach, the job seems to be behind the eight ball before it begins.
Why not chat with Internet Archive and just NOT (filter) out the non-UK content. Not perfect but somewhat more robust than 6,000 sites if I understand the write up.
Stephen E Arnold, February 26, 2010
No one paid me to point out that there is a disconnect between government time and Internet time. I think I have to report geophysical issues to the timekeepers in the US, NIST.
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