Archiving the web - an update

A couple of months ago I looked at some initiatives for keeping a permanent record of information on the internet.

Today the Guardian reports new legal powers being pushed through to allow the British Library and 5 other libraries to copy every free UK-based website in an effort to preserve the cultural content of the web for future generations.

According to the Guardian, about a third of all published work only exists in digital form. The powers to allow the key libraries to copy content were originally established in 2003, but delays in putting this into practice mean that millions of web pages have effectively been 'lost'. Approx 13% of internet references in scholarly articles become inactive after only 27 months.

The new powers would only apply to free UK websites ending with the .uk domain (and the forthcoming .sco and .cym domain for Scotland and Wales). However, the archiving of paid-for and restricted content has been delayed until after this year's election for "legal and technical issues" according to the Culture Minister, Margaret Hodge. Certainly the issues relating to paid-for web content, especially around news and will be one of the hot topics for 2010.