IMLS National Digital Platform Grant Awarded to Advance Web Archiving

imls_logo_2cWe are excited to announce that the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has recently awarded a National Leadership Grant, in the National Digital Platform category, to a proposal by Internet Archive’s Archive-It, Stanford University Libraries (DLSS and LOCKSS), University of North Texas, and Rutgers University. The $353,221 grant will support the project “Systems Interoperability and Collaborative Development for Web Archiving,” a two-year research project to test economic and community models for collaborative technology development, prototype system integration through development of Export APIs, and build community participation in web archiving development and new research and access tools. In addition to the technical development included in the scope of work, the project will also host a National Symposium on Web Archiving Interoperability in early 2017.

The project supports the National Digital Platform funding priority of IMLS by increasing access to shared services and infrastructure while building capacity for broader community input in technology development. Project outcomes will promote system integration, facilitate increased distributed preservation of archived data, and help support new global and local access models possible through export APIs, with an eye towards modeling post-grant interoperable systems architectures. Archive-It’s status as widely-used, shared web archiving infrastructure ensures broad community impact and makes possible the involvement of institutions of all sizes in project work. The involvement of Stanford University Libraries builds on their work in the Hydra community and with digital preservation services. UNT contributes experience in digital library and web archiving technology development and Rutgers’ work on research uses of web archives ensures the involvement of downstream user communities. Overall, the project will lay the groundwork for future collaboration around interoperability that will enhance the integration of disparate systems, increase local preservation, and improve the discoverability and use of web archives.

The outcomes of the project will build on the past and current collaborations of project partners, as well as Archive-It’s work on API development internally and in related collaborative development work. Project partners’ roles in affiliated groups like the IIPC, LDCX, NDSA, and the Web Science community ensures the involvement of the larger digital library and internet researcher communities. The two-year project will run from January 2016 through December 2017 and Jefferson Bailey, Director, Web Archiving Programs, Internet Archive, will serve as Project Director.

We thank IMLS for their generous support of this project and their ongoing support for libraries and archives working collaboratively towards building a sustained National Digital Platform. The complete list of IMLS-funded projects this award cycle is available online and the full narratives of all projects funded as part of the National Digital Platform were published on the IMLS blog . Go IMLS!