Ok! so there you are, you have spent years getting a web site together. What happens if it all goes, or you make changes?
Information is lost.
For lesbian, gay, bi and trans people the web is first point of contact. It offers news advice, guidance, dating, volunteer opportunities, forums, so on and so on, BUT has it always?
When was the first gay web site, the first lesbian web site. When did you first launch your web site and how much has it changed?
It is time to think about archiving web sites.
I know there are hundreds, thousands even, of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender web sites here and across the world.
Who is recording and archiving them all?
Try out this site and see just what a nightmare web site archiving is!
OK so how on earth do we archive a web site.
This is the sort of thing that archivist's across the country are having nightmares about.
Two options Print it off, page by page on good quality paper, using good quality ink...........................................or................................................but what about links?
Putting it on a CD ROM or a DVD.
There is a problem with Cd's and DVDs. technology is changing so fast and in so many directions.
Consider when computers where simple machines/basic games consoles, computers would not have been able to read the information on a CD or DVD.
The floppy disk drive has become a recordable medium which is now becoming increasingly hard to open and read.
So what does that leave us with ?
Print the whole lot
There is nothing wrong with putting your wed sites pages on a disc, such as CD or DVD, however do try to print off the most important pages and you wont go far wrong.
You may like to think about archiving on a national archive site. Let me know if you should find a UK based web archive.
Happy archiving!
