Empowering Public Libraries to Create Community History Web Archives

Community Webs is a two year IMLS and Internet Archive funded program to provide education, applied training, cohort support, and web archiving services for public librarians to develop expertise in web archiving.

Over the next two years, participating libraries will collectively preserve over 35 terabytes of web based community heritage materials for long-term access, contribute to educational resources relating to web archiving and digital preservation, and explore new forms of local engagement and partnerships through public programming support. The resulting resources and materials will be made publicly available to other institutions interested in pursuing their own web archiving programs.

Why is web archiving important for public libraries?

The ability to preserve local records from online news, local blogs, social media, and other platforms is an increasingly important skill for librarians seeking to fulfill their role as information custodians and community anchors in the age of the web. By including web archives in their collecting activities, librarians can play an active role in preserving the contemporary records of their communities and ensure that these unique materials are accessible for use as a trusted source in the future.

Interested in finding out more?

Watch our Tech Soup webinar 

Check out our conference presentations

Keep an eye on the Archive-It blog for program updates!

Read the Community Webs IMLS grant proposal

Send any questions to:

Maria Praetzellis, Program Manager – Archive-It  Maria @archive.org

Sylvie Rollason-Cass, Web Archivist – Archive-It  Sylvie @archive.org

PROGRAM PARTNERS