Building, Maintaining & Growing

Webrecorder: Building, Maintaining

& GrowingIIPC WAC | November 14, 2018

Anna PerricciAssociate Director of Strategic PartnershipsWebrecorder at Rhizome Rhizome at the New MuseumAnna.Perricci@rhizome.org

Webrecorder Team

Dragan EspenschiedPreservation Director,

Rhizome

Ilya KreymerSoftware Director

Mark BeasleySenior Front-End

Developer

Pat ShiuAssociate Director

of Design

Anna PerricciAssociate Director,

Strategic Partnerships

John BerlinSenior Back-End

Developer

About WebrecorderCreate high-fidelity, interactive captures of any web

pages you browse

http://webrecorder.io Webrecorder Player

A project by

with generous support from

Webrecorder Project● Easy to use, robust tools● Free to use● Fully open source● Using open standards● Growing user community● Quickly evolving

High fidelity web archiving

● Fidelity = similarity between original and capture

● Capture any web page loaded in the browser

● Archive interactive content (only available after user input)

● Same system for capture & browsing (web browser)

Webrecorder creates high fidelity web archives including

elements that crawler based systems often fail to capture

such as interactive content

Collecting at human scale• Collecting is done with intent by a person via web browser one page at a time

• Can import and augment collections created by crawlers

• Anyone can use Webrecorder: web archiving for all!

The payoff for careful capture is an accurate representation of the original

● Being mindful and observant while collecting is necessary and respectful (regardless of tool)

● Hand collecting can facilitate thoughtful acquisition & require one to be more aware of what is being gathered

● Crawler/machine based collecting is done via a software that is made with human influence ○ Any claim of neutrality because automated tools

are used rings false (biases via algorithms)

Thoughts on human scale collecting

Your data ● Web archiving is more than just capture – it is about

description, stewardship and sharing, too

● You can save in free account &/or take your data out of Webrecorder for storage (local &/or repository!)

● Downloaded WARCs accessible with free software (Webrecorder Player)

● Collections can be shared or kept private

What about social media?● Webrecorder can capture content from social

media sites (e.g. Instagram and Twitter)● Some websites deliver content individualized for

each user● Webrecorder can capture the content you see

when you are logged in to a social media profile

Login credentials● Webrecorder.io is designed to not capture or retain

your login credentials (i.e. social media)

● But a non-personal account is not a bad idea since there’s a possibility credentials could be written into a WARC file if Webrecorder is not successful in suspending capture during log in

● Under no circumstances is your log in exposed via Webrecorder.io or discoverable

Human scale collecting (one page at a time)

with no barrier to entry (via Webrecorder.io)

levels the playing field

Bound archive & symmetrical web archiving

● Bound archive à collection with firm boundaries, With web archiving users can often quickly find boundaries via browsing

● Symmetrical web archiving à same user facing software for collecting and access (a web browser)

Sustainability● More tools to come though some will not be free

● Subscription for more storage – Q1 2019

● Automated collecting & QA tools – Q3 2019

● Support to be better staffed but good design & remote meetings/presentations are helping a lot

● Income: subscriptions, grants, grant subawards (i.e. preservation tool for web projects), funded collaborations & custom work, priority support

Collaboration & partnerships in action

● User partnerships with new web archiving projects (Carnegie Hall, Stanford UP, Pelican Bomb) and leaders in the field

● Development work (British Library, Perma.cc)

● Collaborative development (NFB)

● Increased usage from journalists & professors

Conference: Ethics & Archiving the Web

● IMLS funded forum co-organized by Rhizome and

Doc Now colleagues

● Videos of panels freely available

https://eaw.rhizome.org/

● Stay tuned for recommended practices document

and blog post follow ups from EAW

Will we mirror or amplify the web’s problems?

● Let’s try not to

● Trauma or re-traumatization possible through collecting

● Opportunity to highlight voices that are not privileged by for profit or institutional entities

● Decolonizing web archives

Workshop3:30pmtoday!

You are welcome to contact us!

Anna.Perricci@rhizome.orgor

support@Webrecorder.io

A project by

with generous support from

Thank you