4 Web Archives

Everyday life is difficult to imagine without the World Wide Web: Politics, news, work, social interaction and many other aspects of society are happening or being reflected on the Internet. No other media guarantees a comparable dissemination of information that reaches people virtually anywhere in the world and in as little time as the Internet. While providing information is the initialization of knowledge transfer, preserving it must also be ensured in order to make use of that information into the future. Since most web content is exclusively available in electronic form, it is at risk of being lost forever. The lack of long-term availability of web content has been identified as one of the Internet’s most decisive weaknesses. To avoid a so called digital black hole there is a need to implement web archives. In 2003, the UNESCO recognized the danger of losing a part of the world’s cultural heritage and issued its Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage. This paper addresses the end of the information life-cycle and examines the need, benefit, methods, and possible developments of web archiving.