May 27, 2023

Digital archives meant to be permanent seem to be lost on the web

Digital archives meant to be permanent seem to be lost on the web
Digital archives meant to be permanent seem to be lost on the webDigital archives meant to be permanent seem to be lost on the web
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Some digital archives appear to be missing

Bill Hinton/Getty Images

The internet can be an ephemeral place, which is problematic for digital web archives designed to permanently preserve the content of web pages. Such archives are themselves at risk of losing information, according to an analysis of library and public records web pages.

This is because some of these pages alter their fixed location on the internet, known as a base uniform resource identifier (URI), and there is no automated way to find the new URI. This could be due to organisational changes, lack …