approaches to archiving professional blogs hosted in the cloud

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

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UKOLN is supported by:

Approaches to Archiving Professional BlogsHosted in the Cloud

iPRES 2010, Vienna, Austria

Tuesday, September 21st 2010

Marieke Guy

Research Officer, UKOLN

www.bath.ac.uk

This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/papers/pres-2010/paper25/http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/papers/pres-2010/paper25/


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Introduction to UKOLN• UKOLN is a centre of excellence in digital information

management, providing advice and services to the library, information and cultural heritage communities

• Library and cataloguing background• Located at the University of Bath, UK• Funded by JISC to advise UK HE and FE communities • Also project funding, including EU funding• Many areas of work including metadata, repositories,

dissemination activities, eScience, etc.• Digital preservation projects: DRIVER, CEDARS,

eBank, JISC Preservation of Web Resources, Beginners Guide, etc.

• Digital Curation Centre


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Why blogs? Why in the Cloud?

• Ease of creation, ease of use, ease of sharing• Increasingly used for reflecting, analyzing,

questioning, critiquing, recording, discussing, learning, etc.

• Very important for information professionals• Many dissemination benefits

• Lack of institutional blogging infrastructure• UKOLN supports innovation• Cloud is an agile, cost-effective, highly useable way

to deliver a service

• Now own institutional service and over 15 blogs


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The Professional’s blog

• Established 2006• 750+ posts• 240 users per day• Personal style• Institution vs

individual?


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The Project blog

• 2008 - 2010• 118 posts• 141 comments• 6 contributors• Professional style


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The Event blog

• June – August 2009• 68 posts• 3 contributors +

guests• Video, interviews,

photos, discussion• Informal/

professional style


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Why Preserve blogs?• Contain useful information• Information not available elsewhere• Look and feel relevant• Cultural significance• Reliance on 3rd party services• Blogs disappear (UK HE funding cuts…)

• ‘Archiving’ - ways in which blog content can be migrated to alternative environments in order to satisfy a number of business functions

• Focus on short-term continuity and management• Could comprise part of a preservation Strategy


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Different Approaches:• New Static Master Copy• Backup Copy• Migration to Another Platform• Physical Manifestation• Other technical approaches

• What are the issues with each of these?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mnsc/433436548/


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New Static Master Copy• Migrate blog to static HTML• Point to new static resource• IWMW – WinHTTTrack static copyIssues: • No interactivity• Loss of technical architecture e.g. plugins• Loss of other elements e.g comments• Look and feel


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Backup Copy• Using XML, using HTML?• Where? • On the server? On a disc? On an external hard

drive?• On the same blog platform?• ArchivePress• On alternate blog platform?• JP XML version on Intranet• IWMW static version on IntranetIssues: • Access


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Migration to Another Platform

• Live blog to alternate platform• Could just be for data mining purposes – can’t do

on current environment• UKWF VOX platform, RSS feeds used, Yahoo

pipes• Export featureIssues: • Access• Loss of technical architecture e.g. plugins• Loss of other elements e.g comments• Look and feel


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Physical Manifestation• Create a hard copy print out e.g. self-publishing• Create PDF of site, RSS2PDF• UKWF Lulu self published book available• Purpose specificIssues• Obviously not interactive but record unlikely to

degrade like other options


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Technical Approaches• HTML Scraping

– HTTTrack – static Web site created• Third-party Web archiving

– UK Web Archive– Internet Archive– Not always complete capture but useful for look

and feel– URL submitted for case study blogs


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Freezing a blog• Assessment of status of blog• Audit - Get your house in order: links to embeds,

comments, spam, etc.• Preliminary posts• Statistics: dates, posts, comments, spam,

contributors, theme, plugins, software, licence etc. • Archive page/sidebar widget• Final post• Indication that blog is archived• Close comments• Archive blog

http://www.flickr.com/photos/plousia/93646438/


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The Archive Page


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General Issues• What constitutes a blog? – content, layout, plugins,

comments, tags, images, multimedia, etc.• Who owns a blog?• Identity, copyright, ownership and licences• Privacy• Permissions to access blogs belonging to

individuals• Understandability of pages if out of context• Blog policies• Availability


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Best Practice Checklist• Planning• Clarification of rights• Monitoring of technologies used• Auditing• Understanding of costs and benefits• Identification and implementation of archiving

strategy• Dissemination• Learning• Organisational Audit


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Lessons Learnt• Need for a risk assessment framework if using

third party services• Importance of planning and writing of blog policy

at start of blog lifecycle• Useful to consider a combination of approaches

rather than just one• Value of sharing best practice of blog archiving


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Questions?• Twitter Id: mariekeguy• Email: [email protected]• Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/MariekeGuy

• All resource URLs tagged with ipres2010-blogs:http://delicious.com/mariekeguy/ipres2010-blogs

approaches to archiving professional blogs hosted in the cloud

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