[Air-L] Decentralized Web Archives Research Findings (June 2, 12 EDT)

[Ed Summers]

For the past 6 months New Design Congress [1] and Webrecorder [2] have been engaged in interviews with archivists and memory workers to help understand the benefits and potential harms of *decentralized* web archives [3]. They are sharing some preliminary results on their monthly call today from 12-1PM EDT [4], and I thought this might be a conversation that others in the AoIR might be interested in.

Web archives, like the Internet Archive, British Library or PageFreezer, are typically institutional platforms which collect web content from elsewhere and present it for historical or evidentiary purposes. These platforms have their own practices, policies and procedures that shape what gets collected, how it is viewed, and how it gets removed.

The Webrecorder project has been building browser based tools to allow users to create and and publish web archives, similar to other media types (images, audio, video). You can think of these archives as something like screenshots, but which afford more interaction while documenting the provenance of the content (the HTTP traffic is recorded, serialized and then played back on demand).

Hopefully it will be an interesting conversation. There should be a recording available afterwards—if you want me to let you know when it’s available just send me an email.

//Ed

[1] https://newdesigncongress.org/
[2] https://webrecorder.net
[3] https://webrecorder.net/2022/01/18/grant-update-standards-and-design-research.html
[4] https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEtf-utrDIoE9UKtwF5oc5Dpf-GdXydQY85