Session 1: Crawling Through Current Events: How Web Archivists Document Politics, Racial Justice, and COVID-19

Abstract

Web content is uniquely ephemeral. Resources with significant historical value are frequently removed from public access without notice. This panel will explore how archivists use web archiving to document the current moment, especially the COVID-19 pandemic, women in politics, and racial justice. Panelists from the Library of Congress, National Library of Medicine, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and University of Virginia will discuss practical and theoretical considerations underpinning their web archiving projects, collecting goals and scopes, challenges experienced, solutions devised, and lessons learned. This session will be moderated by University of Michigan archivist, Steven Gentry.