Preserving State Government Web Publications - First-Year Experiences

Government information publishing on the web encounters differing expectations concerning the permanence of documents. Presumptions of informality in web authoring and publishing widely persist. But, terms like "government documents" convey, at least to the layman, an expectation of formality, official content, and permanence. If permanent, searchable archives of electronic documents are to be constructed, issues in economical automated assembly and cataloging of multiple simultaneous versions of retained materials must be dealt with. High-quality metadata might contribute to these needs, as well as to enhanced search effectiveness now. This paper reports on the first year’s operation of an automated web archival facility designed for interoperability with the Find-It! Illinois metadata-aware search engine for the state government documents of Illinois. Comparison statistics for the state government of Arizona are also provided. The Preserving Electronic Publications system was developed from open-source materials, under a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.