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Tags » digital preservation

25 posts

Building a personal archive of the web, the slow way
How I built a web archive by hand, the tradeoffs between manual and automated archiving, and what I learnt about preserving the web.
What I’ve Learned by Building to Last
There are patterns in what lasts; people skills matter more than technical skills; long-lasting systems cannot grow forever.
Unexpected errors in the BagIt area
Exploring the many ways a BagIt bag can be invalid, and how you might want to build a process for validating bags to ensure the quality of your digital archive.
Using static websites for tiny archives
I’ve been creating small, hand-written websites to organise my files. It’s a lightweight, flexible approach that I hope will last a long time.
Digital decluttering
I’m resisting my temptation towards digital hoarding and “save everything”, and trying to be more selective about the data I’m keeping.
You should take more screenshots
If you do any sort of creative digital work, screenshots and screen recordings are a great way to remember it.
Wellcome Collection’s approach to digital verification
How we ensure the safety, security and integrity of the files in Wellcome’s digital collections.
Large things living in cold places
Using cold storage tiers to reduce the cost of storing Wellcome’s digital collections in the cloud.
How long is my data? 💾
A fun app to calculate the size of your data in terms of floppy disks.
Building Wellcome Collection’s new archival storage service
How we built the new cloud-based storage system for holding an ever-growing digital archive.

TIL: The “MCP” in Archivematica stands for “Master Control Program”
It’s nothing to do with generative AI.
Flickr Foundation at iPres 2024
In September, I went to Belgium for a digital preservation conference. I wrote about what I learnt and what I saw for the Flickr.org blog.
Preserving pixels in Paris
I went to France for a conference about archiving the web, and I came back with thoughts and photos.
TIL: Open a Safari webarchive from Twitter/X without being redirected
Disabling JavaScript when you open the webarchive file will prevent you from redirecting you to twitter.com.
Creating a Safari webarchive from the command line
We can use the createWebArchiveData method on WKWebView to write a Swift script that creates Safari webarchive files.
TIL: What’s inside a Safari webarchive?
The inside of a .webarchive file is a binary property list with the complete responses and some request metadata.
Taking regular screenshots of my website
A screenshot a day keeps the bit rot at bay.
Going through my old school papers
Digitising and pruning my boxes of paper from school. In which I have nostalgia, sadness, and the sense that everything old is new again.
How moving to the cloud took Wellcome’s digital collections to new heights
Building our own platform allowed us to make decisions based on what’s best for the collections, and not the limitations of our digital infrastructure.
Saving your alt text from Twitter
Twitter’s archives don’t include the alt text you wrote on images, but you can save a copy with their API.
Replicating Wellcome Collection’s digital archive to Azure Blob Storage
How and why we keep copies of Wellcome’s digital collections in multiple cloud storage providers.
Archive monocultures considered harmful
We are better off when the same topic is represented in multiple, different archives.
Storing multiple, human-readable versions of BagIt bags
How we use the fetch.txt file in a bag to track multiple copies of an object in our digital archive.
How I scan and organise my paperwork
My procedure for scanning paper, and organising the scanned PDFs with keyword tagging.
Digital preservation at Wellcome Collection
Slides from a presentation about our processes, practices, and tools.