Web archives and their contemporary socio-technical contexts: new challenges and perspectives

Over nearly three decades of web archiving, we have witnessed profound transformations in the landscape: the emergence of different players, practices and processes; the evolution of aims and goals; the recognition of new challenges; and the blossoming of collaborations between archival institutions and researchers. Web archive studies has begun to take shape as a discrete field of research and is itself beginning to be interrogated critically. We would argue that web archives and web archive studies are reaching an inflection point. After a ‘long process resulting in the consolidation of standards, best practices, shared methods, tools, and knowledge’ (Ben David 2021, 182), there is an opportunity to reevaluate web archiving research and practice and to reconsider the relationship between web archives and their contemporary sociotechnical contexts (Schafer and Winters 2021). Web archives are not merely static repositories; they are dynamic entities closely entangled with contemporary challenges. These include ethical approaches to the archiving, preservation and reuse of personal and public data; the environmental impact of digital preservation in the face of a climate crisis; and the requirement to respond swiftly to unforeseen events and crises. All of these transformations unfold simultaneously within web archiving institutions and in the broader context of changing digital and scientific practice. They affect the objects and subjects of study; methods of data collection and preservation; and the demands and expectations placed on web archives by society. In this roundtable, we will explore the extent to which web archives are both active participants in and influenced by this highly transformative age, and how they are responding to it. We will consider web archives as ‘archives of crisis’; discuss how web archives are (and are not) in tune with these challenging and febrile times; and explore the processes of constant renewal, adaptation and ultimately transformation that have allowed web archives to weather the digital and social storms of the early 21st century. Finally, we will identify current and future challenges that will necessitate continuing adaptation and innovation in web archiving and web archive studies, including artificial intelligence, new kinds of born-digital data, the increasing platformisation of the web, and the importance of transnational studies.

Speaker biographies

Anat Ben-David is Associate Professor of Communication at the Open University of Israel. Focusing on the intersection between Science and Technology Studies (STS) and New Media, her research explores the interplay between digital platforms, politics and knowledge. Methodologically, she specialises in developing and applying digital and computational methods for internet research. Ben-David is coeditor of the journal Internet Histories: Digital Technology, Culture and Society (Taylor & Francis/Routledge), and co-editor of the Routledge Companion to Transnational Web Archive Studies (Forthcoming, 2024).

Nicola Bingham is the Lead Curator of Web Archiving at the British Library in the Department of Collections. Following BA and MA degrees in History from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Nicola began her archival career at Tyne and Wear Archives Service before joining the British Library in 2002. Nicola manages the Library’s web archiving strategy and the on-going road map for web archiving capability, ensuring that stakeholders across the Legal Deposit Libraries, and other partners, have the necessary tools for curating websites according to their own collection development policies. She is Co-Chair of the International Internet Preservation Consortium Content Development Group.

Sophie Gebeil is Lecturer in Contemporary History at Aix-Marseille University (TELEMME Laboratory, AMU-CNRS). Her research focuses on the study of memorial practices and online social mobilisations, using web archives as a historical source. She is a member of the Institut Universitaire de France. At the University of Aix-Marseille, she is Vice-President for Human Sciences and the Mediterranean Region.

Valérie Schafer has been a Professor in Contemporary European History at the C²DH (Centre for Contemporary and Digital History) at the University of Luxembourg since 2018. She previously worked at the French CNRS and is still an Associate Researcher at the Center for Internet and Society (CIS – CNRS UPR 2000). She specialises in the history of computing, telecommunications and data networks. Her main research interests are the history of the Internet and the Web, the history of European digital cultures and infrastructures, and born-digital heritage (especially Web archives). She is a co-founder of the journal Internet Histories. Digital Technology, Culture and Society (Taylor & Francis).

Jane Winters is Professor of Digital Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. She has led or co-directed a range of digital projects, including the Congruence Engine and Heritage Connector projects; the UK-Ireland Digital Humanities Association network; Big UK Domain Data for the Arts and Humanities; and Traces through Time: Prosopography in Practice across Big Data. Jane’s research interests include digital history, born-digital archives and open access publishing. She has published most recently on web archives and researcher access, Non-Print Legal Deposit, and borndigital archives and the problem of search.