Preserving the Fabric of Our Lives: A Survey of Web Preservation Initiatives

This paper argues that the growing importance of the World Wide Web means that Web sites are key candidates for digital preservation. After an brief outline of some of the main reasons why the preservation of Web sites can be problematic, a review of selected Web archiving initiatives shows that most current initiatives are based on combinations of three main approaches: automatic harvesting, selection and deposit. The paper ends with a discussion of issues relating to collection and access policies, software, costs and preservation.