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Web archiving is the process of collecting portions of the internet, preserving it in an archival format, and making it accessible to researchers and the public. Western Libraries uses Archive-It to capture and preserve online content.

Information on the internet changes regularly. According to the Internet Archive, the average webpage lasts approximately 90 days before changing, moving, or going offline. Web archiving preserves and ensures access to online content for future use.

You can find our archived web collections at Archive-It - University of Western Ontario (archive-it.org). Our collection includes material from Archives and Special Collections, University Publications, and the Ontario Provincial Election of 2018, among others.

The majority of websites included in the archived web collections were captured using Archive IT's Brozzler crawling technology. Brozzler captures photographs and image files that are 1100 x 900 pixels or larger. If images are not appearing while replaying websites or accessing archived web content, please try zooming in or out of the screen. If the images won't replay at all, please contact Archives and Special Collections.

Data limits set on scehduled captures include data limits for video content. As a result, not all video content is captured for the archived web collections.

Requests for web archiving must follow Western Libraries’ Web Archiving Policy.

Nominate a website for archiving

Archives and Special Collections has a crowdsourcing transcription project with FromThePage to make handwritten material from the university’s archives more accessible and to engage with the archives community, on and off campus.

Transcribed texts help people using screen-readers read the contents of a manuscript, help decipher handwritten, cursive writing, and assist in finding information on individuals or topics. It’s also a fun way for enthusiasts to learn more about the history of Western University, London, Ontario, and the surrounding area!

Interested in transcribing with us? You need to create a free account with FromThePage. Not ready to create an account? You can transcribe up to 3 pages as a guest.

Once you have set up an account you can browse our projects open for transcription. You can do an original transcription, review other transcriptions, or help create index terms.

Transcription is not an exact science

However, the more you transcribe, the better you become! It’s important to recognize the individual and specific ways in which the writers wrote: look for their particularities in forming certain letters and then you can apply that knowledge elsewhere in the document.

Rely on context to decipher words

Look for similar words or letters in the document that may help you decode the handwriting; think about what is actually being talked about in the document. Check letters against other known examples within the same document. If you see a personal or place name, or if you don’t know the meaning of a word, doing a web search can help provide context. When in doubt, Google it!

Use original spelling if possible

If you want to fix a spelling mistake or spell out an acronym or shortened form of a word, feel free to add it in using square brackets after you have transcribed what is actually on the page, e.g. The UWO Senate met on November 1 [University of Western Ontario].

Punctuation

Do not add punctuation like commas and apostrophes if they do not appear in the original text.

Line breaks are part of transcribing

Hit return once after each line ends (rather than each sentence). Two returns indicate a new paragraph, which is usually identified as a left indentation in the original. (See example in image below.)

Doodles, drawings or illustrations

Doodles, drawings or illustrations on the page should be described within square brackets, if you can decipher what the drawing is, e.g. [image-woman skating].

Don't preserve hyphenation due to a line break

Simply write the complete word on the next line. This enables more effective word searches later.

Square brackets are a helpful transcription tool

Use them to show your formatting, decision-making actions. Formatting such as underlining, italics, bold can be described in this way: [bold] [/bold], [underline] [/underline], etc.

Illegible readings are part of the transcription process

Indicate the passage’s illegibility in square brackets with a question mark: [About this time?].

Columns are a common challenge

Material should be transcribed the way in which it is read, with markups indicating position on the page, i.e. [left column] or [right column].