Portobello Online - forever

Bob Jefferson · Post by **Bob Jefferson** » 06 Feb 2006, 23:07

Remember those late night drunken posts? That unseemly online spat? Well you will now be delighted to know that that the National Library of Scotland has decided to preserve these moments and many, many more for all time. Porty in perpetuity. Oh dear.

Dear Sir/Madam

Invitation to participate in UK Web Archiving Project

Portobello online (http://porty.org.uk/home/)

As a member of the UK Web Archiving Consortium, the National Library of Scotland is archiving selected web sites that it judges to be an important part of the documentary heritage of Scotland.

We would like to invite you to participate in the project by granting permission to archive the web site(s) detailed above, under the terms of the attached licence.

To formally grant Library permission could you please return the attached Copyright Licence form to the address below. I have also attached our standard covering letter and FAQ, for your information.

I very much hope that you are willing to grant the Library permission to archive the site(s), as we believe it to be an important part of our documentary heritage.

I look forward to hearing from you, and please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any queries about the Project, or experience any problems with the attachments.

Many thanks,

pp Ian Scott
for
Paul Cunnea

Electronic Collections Development Coordinator
National Library of Scotland
33 Salisbury Place
Edinburgh
Scotland
EH9 1SL

bellybabe · Post by **bellybabe** » 06 Feb 2006, 23:46

I just about sprayed red wine all over my laptop just now. Do that again and I'll sue.

So reassuring to know that this post will be preserved.

foxy · Post by **foxy** » 06 Feb 2006, 23:49

What an amazing idea Bob

Hopefully in 400 years time, our descendants will find our gibberish as riveting and informative about our times, as this from the great diarist himself. Well perhaps not

samuelpepysdiary

mr magnolia · Post by **mr magnolia** » 06 Feb 2006, 23:52

foxy wrote:What an amazing idea Bob
Hopefully in 400 years time, our descendants will find our gibberish as riveting and informative about our times, as this from the great diarist himself. Well perhaps not

samuelpepysdiary

Foxy - only if they get someone to write it all down with pen and ink and paper. In about 15yrs time no-one will have software capable of reading our bletherings, so we are quite safe.

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 07 Feb 2006, 00:43

wangi and xxxx can correct me if I'm wrong, but will this archive the forum?

to do so would mean taking a copy of the database itself

when I have seen snapshots of old websites on the wayback machine (the internet archive) they never have forums

I hope I'm wrong!

xxxx · Post by **xxxx** » 07 Feb 2006, 10:02

i don't see how they could practically archive the forum, so your posts will eventually disappear, like tears in the rain...

Porty · Post by **Porty** » 07 Feb 2006, 10:24

xxxx wrote:i don't see how they could practically archive the forum, so your posts will eventually disappear, like tears in the rain...

I was feeling quite happy, now you have gone and spoilt it, all this effort is fruitless

Post by **wangi** » 07 Feb 2006, 10:30

Personally I don't see a practical problem archiving the forum posts (the webpages directly)...

Anyway there are already archives out there of Portobello Online:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.portob ... rgh.org.uk
http://web.archive.org/web/*/porty.org.uk

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 07 Feb 2006, 10:59

...but not of the forum

what is our current backup of the forum?

is there off-site storage?

how are we going to ensure that, in the future, all of our gossip and tittle-tattle is going to be readable by archeologists excavating the ruins of Neo-Portobelloppafieldham?

also, can we have a ringfenced "classic threads" bit?

Post by **wangi** » 07 Feb 2006, 11:09

Prior to the last host move I was doing an automated backup of the site and forum databases every night, and storing the backed up databases off-host.

...In fact I'm still doing a nightly backup of the old site

Just now the only backup is what the hosting provider does (https://support.a2hosting.com/index.php ... icleid=338)

EDIT: And if you actually hunt around the wayback machine archives and remove the trailing "sid=" nonsense in the URL you'll find the odd forum page that is archived.

Bob Jefferson · Post by **Bob Jefferson** » 07 Feb 2006, 11:10

Here's some more info on this:

Licence to archive Web site: FAQâ€™s

What am I doing when I grant the National Library of Scotland a copyright licence?

When you grant the National Library of Scotland a copyright licence, you are permitting it to make a copy of your web site, to store it and to make it accessible to the public for the duration of the project in an archive of web sites held on a server owned by the UK Web Archiving Consortium. If the project is successful, you are also permitting us to take the necessary steps to preserve your web site as part of the Libraryâ€™s permanent collections and to make it accessible to the public now and in the future through a server hosted by the Library. This process might include the copying of files to different formats so that they remain accessible as hardware and software changes in the future.

What is this licence?

In accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 permission to copy a publication (which includes websites) must be obtained from the publisher/author. As the National Library of Scotland wants to copy a substantial portion of your web site, we must seek your permission. â€˜Granting a licenceâ€™ is the legal term for giving permission to copy a publication. The licence consists of the letter sent to you requesting that you grant the National Library of Scotland a copyright licence and, if you agree to grant it, your returned signed copyright licence.

Am I giving away copyright in my web site?

No. You still retain full copyright in your web site, both in the live version of your web site and the archived version in the Consortiumâ€™s archive. If any third party wanted to copy more than an insubstantial portion (as defined by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988) either from the live version of your web site or from the archived version, they would still be obliged to seek your permission.

How often will my web site be archived?

A decision will be made on the frequency of capture desirable for each web site based on the publication pattern, the importance of the information, and the stability of the site.

How will my archived web site be displayed?

For an example of how the web archive may be presented on the web please point your browser at: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/index.html. When the version of your web site in the Archive is accessed, a title entry page will display first. This will provide introductory information about the title including a link to your live site, a general statement about copyright and a link to your own copyright statement if such a statement is provided. If access to a web site needs to be restricted for some reason (for instance, it is a commercial title, or the contents are culturally sensitive) the necessary protective measures can also be put in place. We are happy to discuss this with all copyright owners.

What are the benefits to contributing to the project?

There are some benefits to you as a web site owner in having your publication archived by the Consortium. If you grant NLS a licence, we will take the necessary preservation action to keep your publication accessible as hardware and software changes over time. The archived site will be available through the Library catalogue and the Consortium web site, thereby increasing awareness of your publication among researchers using libraries.

What organisations are members of the UK Web Archiving Consortium?

The UK Web Web Archiving Consortium consists of the National Library of Scotland, the National Library of Wales, the British Library, the National Archives, JISC, and the Wellcome Library. Its aim is to test the feasibility of selective web archiving in the UK.

xxxx · Post by **xxxx** » 07 Feb 2006, 11:19

They could scrape the individual pages but I think it would be tricky to index them in any way that resembles the forum, the internal links don't mean much outside phpbb.

The practical problem I see is that they would have to do some customised retrieval and I don't think they would bother

Threads could be nominated for posterity quite easily, we could just grab them and post them as html in another area of the site, the archive would then pick them up.

The forum is still backed up every night, the rest of the site is backed up manually every so often, can't automate that on this system

promqueen · Post by **promqueen** » 14 Feb 2006, 00:10

I think this is a great step forward !I'm always trawling my way through old newspapers etc. to get a sense of the social history of my area - even if we all come across as toerags and ne'er do wells, at least it will be our own voices that condemn or endear us to the folk in the future - maybe our blethers will be just the thing they're after !

Bob Jefferson · Post by **Bob Jefferson** » 16 Feb 2006, 15:27

From today's EN:

City website logs in to the history books

CatzVP · Post by **CatzVP** » 16 Feb 2006, 15:48

Are they duplicating the site up to the day they transfer the data, or is it an ongoing update??

so will this message go in it???

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 16 Feb 2006, 15:57

CatzVP wrote:
Are they duplicating the site up to the day they transfer the data, or is it an ongoing update??

so will this message go in it???

I don't think the forum will be on it, just static pages.

I can't see what this is doing that's different from the existing internet archive (www.archive.org) apart from hype.

CatzVP · Post by **CatzVP** » 16 Feb 2006, 15:59

bummer!

Post by **wangi** » 16 Feb 2006, 15:59

If you read the article you'll see the main interest point is G8... and I guess our threads on it too - so I think the forum is what they're after...

It's not hard to scrape with a bit of Perl and voodoo regex...

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 16 Feb 2006, 17:58

I must dig out my scenic postcard riot copper pics. I just loved the juxtaposition of geraniums and cracked bonces.