Web Archiving for Beginners

An increasing portion of the cultural record is moving online—a shift accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the issue of long-term preservation of web content is more pressing than ever. This beginner-level workshop aims to empower archivists to begin preserving web content using accessible and user-friendly tools. This workshop is catered to community archives and other cultural heritage institutions with limited resources looking to start a web archiving project. This workshop will introduce participants to the practice of web archiving and provide guidance to start building web collections on a small scale. It aims to encourage active participation through a mix of hands-on practice, live demonstrations, and discussions. The workshop will cover some helpful concepts and terms in web archiving, provide sample workflows to guide a web archiving project and give participants the opportunity to practice archiving web pages using the Webrecorder software and Conifer, an online web archiving service. 

Capacity: 50 participants

Workshop Objectives

By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:

1. Plan a web archiving project

2. Create a web archive

Workshop Instructors

Hélène Brousseau is the digital and systems librarian at Artexte (since 2016) where she leads Artexte’s Web archiving initiatives which include introductory workshops using Webrecorder and Conifer. Between 2018 and 2019, she has taken part in beta testing for the development Webrecorder (now Conifer). Her work on Web archiving has been presented at the 2021 International Internet Preservation Consortium Congress in the Archiving Communities session. She has taught at Collège de Maisonneuve in the Technique de la documentation department, she is trainer in document management for RCAAQ and has been a member of the Vtape’s board of directors since 2018.

Sarah Lake has been the Digital Preservation Librarian at Concordia University since September 2020. She leads the Library’s Digital Preservation Program and Web Archiving Working Group. At the ACA 2021 virtual conference, she presented on a student-led web archiving pilot project during a panel titled “Upheaval Incites Renewal: Better Description and Access in Times of Uncertainty.” Since the fall of 2021, she offers regular workshops on web archiving to support Concordia researchers in preserving their project websites. She holds a Master of Information Studies from McGill University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film Production from Concordia University.