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Web Archiving at the University of Kentucky Libraries

This LibGuide provides an overview of the University of Kentucky Libraries Web Archiving Program for archival and library colleagues, students, and researchers looking for more information how and why web content is archived.

Program Information

Web archiving at the University of Kentucky Libraries (UK Libraries) started in 2018 with the formation of a Web Archiving Working Group (WAWG).  The original charge was to "review existing national standards for and case studies on web site acquisition, description, and access; establish local policies, priorities, and workflows for web archiving in the UK Libraries using the Archive-It service."  The first working group membership drew from across the Libraries and included two archivists, a technical service librarian, an electronic resources librarian, and a web archiving intern.  In its first year, the working group developed a collection development policy, successfully created six main collections, set up 27 seeds for production crawling, and archived about 985,000 archived pages.  The web archiving intern learned web archiving from scratch, developed orientation presentations and online training tools, and spearheaded the start of a web archiving manual.

The WAWG was active from 2018 to June 2021.  Starting in July 2021, the web archiving program was housed fully within the Special Collections Research Center of UK Libraries.  The current web archiving program is staffed by .50 FTE archivists, who conduct donor relations, acquisitioning (scoping and crawling), accessioning, processing, reference, and outreach for online resources documenting the University of Kentucky and other Kentucky-related individuals, families, and organizations, and in support of university faculty and student research and teaching.  The online resources include websites, social media platforms, and servers.  The program has ten collecting areas and, as of spring 2024, 4.7 TB of data, 82,395,451 documents, and one web server. 

Between 2022-2023, UK Libraries was awarded $14,000 mini-grant from Project STAND, a consortium of mainly universities and colleges focusing on ethical documentation of student-led social justice movements and highlighting collections relating to student activism in marginalized communities.  The project, "Wildcat Histories: Preserving Activist Student Organizations," focused on developing crawling and description standards for social media, working with our partner, the University of Kentucky Latino Student Union.

Manuals and Procedures

The University of Kentucky Libraries Special Collections Research Center Web Archiving Program Manual is a comprehensive guide to web archiving at UK Libraries. At its core, it includes introductory background information, detailed instructions with image guides, and collecting policies. The manual is a living document:  As technology and our policies, procedures, and practices change, the manual is also continually changing.  This manual is under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial license.

The Web Archiving Program Manual

The University of Kentucky Libraries Special Collections Research Center Web Archiving Program Description Procedures manual outlines UK Libraries current policies and practices for describing online resources at accessioning and processing (using ArchivesSpace and Archive-It).  It also includes boilerplate statements about accessing web archives; what to do when adding seeds and when running annual crawls; and information about group names.  The manual is a living document:   As technology and our policies, procedures, and practices change, the manual is also continually changing.  This manual is under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial license.

The Web Archiving Program Description Procedures manual

Presentations about UK Libraries web archiving program

Ruth E. Bryan. "Suddenly, Everything's Online! What Do We Do Now?" (2022). Society of American Archivists annual conference, Boston, Massachusetts.  Available at: http://works.bepress.com/ruthbryan/44/. 

Ruth E. Bryan, Taylor C. Leigh and Emily B Collier. "Preservation Perseverance: Archiving Social Media Content, A University of Kentucky/Latino Student Union Collaboration" (2023). SALALM LXVIII (Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials), Washington, DC. Available at: http://works.bepress.com/ruthbryan/53/

Megan M. Mummey, Sarah Dorpinghaus, Ruth E. Bryan and Emily B. Collier. "Will our future selves thank us? An examination of born-digital curation practices at UKL" (2023). Best Practices Exchange Unconference, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia. Available at: http://works.bepress.com/ruthbryan/45/

Ruth E. Bryan, Taylor C. Leigh and Emily B. Collier. "UK Libraries' "Wildcat Histories:" Preserving Student Activist Social Media Content" (2023). Archive-It Partner Meeting, Washington, DC. Available at: http://works.bepress.com/ruthbryan/54/

Megan M Mummey, Andrew McDonnell, Emily B Collier, Sarah Dorpinghaus, and Ruth E. Bryan. "Will our future selves thank us? An examination of born-digital curation practices at the University of Kentucky Libraries" (2024). Works in Progress Webinar, OCLC Research. Video available at https://www.oclc.org/research/events/2024/born-digital-curation-practices.html. Slides available at: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/libraries_present/263/

Bryan, Ruth E. and Collier, Emily B. "Building a Roadmap for Web Archiving: Organizational Sustainability in an American Research University Library" (2024). International Internet Preservation Consortium Web Archiving Conference, Paris, France. Library Presentations. 265. Video available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiCyMv9uQFo. Slides available at https://uknowledge.uky.edu/libraries_present/265