Web Archiving From a Kid's Point of View
RSSBy Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 08/31/2009
Could 22nd-century researchers think of the Captain Underpants Web site as source material? They might if kids taking part in the K-12 Web Archiving Program decide they want to preserve it for future generations.
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Fifth grade students from P.S. 56 in Queens, NY, one group that worked with their librarians last year to archive digital materials. |
“We’re helping students understand that what they’re doing is important to scholars who will look at this early 21st century,” says Cheryl Lederle-Ensign, an educational resource specialist who works as a liaison between the LOC and the teachers and librarians who shepherd the program at their schools.
For the 2008-2009 school year, students from 10 schools across the country worked with their teachers and librarians to select digital materials such as the social networking sites and blogs archived by the James H. Moran Middle School in Wallingford, CT, to the Games 4 Gals collection, crafted last year by the fifth graders at PS 56 in Queens, NY.
Schools are given free use of the Internet Archive’s Web application, Archive-It, which last year students used to capture more than 1,700 Web sites. The hope is to expand the program to include 14 to 15 schools for the 2009-2010 academic year, says Lederle-Ensign. And while the LOC would like to increase those numbers even more, the $12,000 fee for the Archive-It application is expensive—despite the fact that LOC splits the cost with the Internet Archive.
“We would like to expand it,” says Beth Dulabahn, director of integration management with the LOC, who helps oversee the program. “So we’re talking about how we can get additional funding."
For now, the LOC and its partners are eager to see what students drum up this year—and who best captures the zeitgeist of their generation.
“I think the younger kids actually got it better last year,” says Dulabahn, of the fifth grade class from New York. “They got the connection that this is an artifact of their life today.”
