NYARC implemented a web archiving program to preserve born-digital art resources and develop a sustainable model for archiving dynamic, image-based web content. As IMLS grant-funded interns for web archiving, we spent two semesters at the Frick Art Reference Library working on various facets for capturing online art resources.
Abstract:
Following a two-year pilot study to investigate the migration of many art resources—auction catalogues, catalogues raisonnés, scholarly research projects, and artist, gallery, and museum websites—to exclusively online formats, the NYARC libraries implemented a web archiving program to not only preserve these resources, but also develop a sustainable model for archiving dynamic, image-based web content. As IMLS grant-funded interns for a web archiving project undertaken by NYARC, we spent two semesters at the Frick Art Reference Library working to capture online art resources. The first part of the internship focused on obtaining permission from site owners to archive their content and developing a permissions database. Once permission was received, we began to crawl and evaluate sites to ensure high quality captures. The quality assurance process continued on an ongoing basis, but the project included an additional third phase, in which we cataloged these new resources (including links to current and archived versions of the websites) for OCLC WorldCat, as well as NYARC’s shared catalog. The project examines current trends in web archiving, as well as the sustainability of future efforts.
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