Councils to gain from National Archives web service

25 Jul 11
The National Archives’ web service is to be extended to local government, preserving council records for future generations.
By Lucy Phillips | 25 July 2011

The National Archives’ web service is to be extended to local government, preserving council records for future generations. The archive body currently covers only central government websites but its remit will now be extended to local government and community websites, beginning with seven pilot areas.

The pilots, covering more than 20 local authorities, include Greater Manchester Archives Group, Surrey Heritage, Dorset History Centre and North Yorkshire County Record Office.

Staff in these areas will be trained in how to develop a curated web archive and given free support from the National Archives and its web archive partner, the Internet Memory Foundation.   

Oliver Morley, chief executive and keeper of the National Archives, said: ‘We are working to share the expertise we have built up in archiving government websites with local archive services up and down the country, empowering them to create web archives of their own which will provide a digital history of their communities.’

Central government websites have been archived since 1997. The records contain more than a billion pages of archived material from 2,000 websites.

The pilots will be used to create a template to eventually roll out to all local archive services across the UK.

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