Exploring assemblages of appraisal in web archives

Abstract

Even after over 20 years of active web archiving we know surprising little about how archivists appraise and select web content for preservation. Since we can’t keep it all, how we decide what to keep from the web is certain to shape the historical record (Cook 2011). In this context, we ask the following research questions: 1. How are archivists deciding what to collect from the web? ; 2. How do technologies for web archiving figure in their appraisal decisions? ; 3. Are there opportunities to design more useful systems for the appraisal of content for web archives?