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2016 Web Archiving Survey Report

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The National Digital Stewardship Alliance is pleased to announce the release of the 2016 Web Archiving Survey Report (PDF). Edward Cain helped author this report.

From January 20 to February 16, 2016, a team representing multiple NDSA member institutions and interest groups conducted a survey of organizations in the United States actively involved in, or planning to start, programs to archive content from the Web. This effort built upon a similar survey undertaken by NDSA in late 2011 and published online in June 2012 and a second survey in late 2013 published online in September 2014.

The goal of these surveys is to better understand the landscape of Web archiving activities in the United States by investigating the organizations involved, the history and scope of their Web archiving programs, the types of Web content being preserved, the tools and services being used, access and discovery services being provided, and overall policies related to Web archiving programs. While this survey documents the current state of US Web archiving initiatives, comparison with the results of the 2011 and 2013 surveys enables an analysis of emerging trends. This report therefore describes the current state of the field, tracks the evolution of the field over the last few years, and points to future opportunities and developments.

The reports and survey instruments are available on the NDSA Web site at http://ndsa.org/publications/. 

Best,
The NDSA Web Archiving Survey Working Group

Fourteen Students Receive Scholarships to News Preservation Event at UCLA

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Fourteen graduate students from academic institutions across the U.S. have been selected to receive funding assistance to attend a conference next month where they will take active steps toward preserving digital news.

Each student has received a travel scholarship to help cover expenses to attend the Dodging the Memory Hole: Saving Online News forum Oct. 13 and 14 at UCLA. Students will work side by side with journalists, technologists, librarians and other stakeholders to craft a national agenda for preserving born-digital journalism — content created on a computer or digital sensor.

The forum is an initiative of the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute’s Journalism Digital News Archive with funding from RJI and an Institute of Museum and Library Services Award. Additional support is being provided by UCLA Library, University of Missouri Libraries and the Educopia Institute.

It’s important to make future journalists, archivists and technologists part of the solution now, says Edward McCain, digital curator of journalism at RJI and University of Missouri Libraries.

“It is critical we begin building awareness of the need to preserve born-digital news content today so that future generations will not suffer the looming ‘memory hole’ of lost journalistic reportage,” says McCain. “I’m delighted to have such talented individuals joining us as we work together to save online news.”

Attendees will hear from speakers from organizations including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Library of Congress. Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent Peter Arnett will be a special guest speaker.

The scholarships are being funded by a Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program grant from IMLS. The funding assistance was available to graduate students in the U.S. studying library/information science, journalism, computer science and other related fields.

As part of being selected to receive a scholarship, each student has been asked to propose and complete a project that supports one of the conference goals. They will also pitch their project ideas to the assembly during the forum.

Meet the scholarship recipients

Chris AllmanChris Allman of Charlotte, North Carolina, studies library and information science at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He wants to learn more about how the local news startup Charlotte Agenda is preserving its born-digital news content, and develop additional guidelines for how Charlotte Agenda staff can improve those efforts.

John BerlinJohn Berlin of Suffolk, Virginia, is a computer science student at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where he works for the Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group. His project goal is to improve the Web Archiving Integration Layer (WAIL) software system by adding a feature to enable users to specify criteria to track news or other content from media platforms such as Twitter. Once identified, this content could then be archived automatically.

Terry BrittTerry Britt of Sweetwater, Tennessee, is a doctoral candidate studying journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia. He will write a research paper on the significance of efforts to assure the lifespan and accessibility of local online news content.

Itza CarbajalItza Carbajal of New Orleans, Louisiana, is an information studies scholar at the University of Texas in Austin. She plans to conduct a research project that lists tools such as ArchiveReady.com that measure the ability for a website to be archived properly. She then plans to assess the web archiving readiness of a variety of online news providers.

Jiwon ChoiJiwon Choi of Osan, South Korea, is studying convergence journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia. She plans to meet with international students from the University of Missouri to explore how to protect online media content and develop  possible solutions.   

Alison GuilloryAlison Guillory of Belmont, Massachusetts, is a library and information science scholar at Wayne State University in Detroit. She wants to determine which technologies have successfully protected content from the memory hole and which haven’t by studying how news saved in a digital format have fared over a 20-year period. She plans to document what she learns in a timeline. 

Matt HellmanMatt Hellman of Austin, Texas, is a journalism student at the University of Missouri in Columbia. His project involves a case study of how the Columbia Missourian photography staff is using open source software to provide access to and create a cloud-based long-term archive for digital content.

Shawn JonesShawn Jones of Virginia Beach, Virginia, is a computer science student at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. His project will explore the potential relationship between social media sharing of news articles and how quickly those articles are identified by web crawlers as candidates for archiving.

Mat KellyMat Kelly of LaBelle, Florida, is a doctoral candidate studying computer science at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. His project addresses the need to provide individuals with ways to collect, archive and access news content they perceive as important. Kelly’s work is intended to supplement the large-scale collection work being done by institutions such as the Internet Archive and Library of Congress.

Eva ReaverEva Revear of Puyallup, Washington, studies journalism at New York University in New York. Her goal is to find a way to preserve data-driven news applications such as ProPublica’s Dollars for Docs. She is currently conducting a survey to collect data about news apps so she can devise ways to organize news app archiving systems. Her findings will be published as an academic paper.

Hanna SoltysHanna Soltys of St. Louis studies library and information science at Simmons College in Boston. Her project examines questions surrounding how to create more complete preservation methods that accommodate the complexity of digital news platforms. She will also investigate why current archival practices are struggling to preserve online news content.

Carolina VargasCarolina Vargas of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, studies journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia. She wants to reach journalism students with messages that increase awareness of the problem of born-digital content loss and provide options for solving this problem.

Tamar WilnerTamar Wilner of Dallas studies journalism through the University of Missouri’s online journalism master’s program. She seeks to address problems associated with inaccurate and outdated news content by exploring technology that supports online correction methods.

Elizabeth ZirkElizabeth Zirk, of Palatine, Illinois, studies journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia. She will help author and edit a white paper about the forum outcomes. This will include gathering details about the proposed national agenda for preserving born-digital news, projects proposed by working groups and reports summarizing panels and presentations from the event.

Travel Scholarships for Graduate Students to Attend DtMH 2016 at UCLA

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Please encourage interested graduate students to apply for a travel scholarship to attend the fourth “Dodging the Memory Hole” (DtMH) forum to save born-digital news. The deadline for applications is August 31st! The event takes place Oct. 13-14 at UCLA Library and will feature a roster of nationally-known experts and champions working to preserve the “first draft of history” in digital formats. DtMH 2016 is funded in part by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Science and the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute.

If you have questions or suggestions, please contact me at mccaine@rjionline.org or (573) 882-8049.

 

You Are Invited to the Journalism Library Redication on May 15

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Please join the MU School of Journalism and the MU Libraries in celebrating the rededication of the Frank Lee Martin Journalism Library. The Frank Lee Martin Journalism Library has been providing critical resources to students, researchers and working journalists since 1908. The new Journalism Library, located in the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, seeks to be the global information nexus for journalism on campus and around the world. We hope that you can join us as we honor Frank Lee Martin and dedicate the new Journalism Library facility.

Please RSVP to Helen Pattrin: pattrinh@missouri.edu or 882-0334 by May 11.

Johnson Wins J-School Staff Appreciation Award

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Nina Johnson won the Journalism School’s Amy Lenk Staff Appreciation Award at a ceremony held in the Reynolds Journalism Institute on April 30.

This annual event celebrating the contributions of journalism staff was formerly known as the “Pat on the Back Award.” Last year, the Missourian faculty and staff nominated Nina and were told that she was not staff since she was a librarian. Evidently they felt so strongly about it, they appealed to the committee to allow them to honor her. Dean Mills read a brief part of one of the nominations, presented her with a $500 cash award, a plaque and a packet of nomination letters. A lovely reception honoring her followed the award ceremony.

The Journalism Library Partners with State Historical Society on NEH Grant

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The National Endowment for the Humanities has announced that The State Historical Society of Missouri will join a select group of institutions to create a national, digital resource of historically significant newspapers. The Society will receive a $179,740 grant to digitize and provide access to 100,000 pages of Missouri newspapers from the period 1880-1920.

This award brings Missouri into the National Digital Newspaper Project, a twenty-year undertaking begun in 2005 to incorporate newspapers from all states and territories published between 1836 and 1922. The online database, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, is maintained by the Library of Congress and already contains papers from California, New York, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

The Missouri Press Association is a major partner in this effort and will contribute $10,000 in matching funds to the project. The Frank Lee Martin Journalism Library and Secretary of State Robin Carnahan are also supporting the grant with outreach and educational activities and by providing increased access to digitized newspapers.