Jefferson Bailey
Director, Web Archiving
Internet Archive
Nicholas Taylor
Program Manager, LOCKSS and Web Archiving
Stanford University
Web archiving is an area of growing programmatic focus but poses high barriers to entry, particularly as a locally-provisioned activity. Observations of other opportunities in web archiving include that local and distributed preservation of web archive data remain flat; researcher use of web archive data has been impeded by lack of standardized interfaces and data exchange approaches; and distributed investments in web archiving infrastructure have been under-leveraged for lack of modularization in enabling services. The Web Archiving Systems API (WASAPI) initiative is concluding an IMLS-funded effort based on the idea that a web archiving technical ecosystem enabled by community-validated, and cooperatively-developed APIs could help address these challenges. This briefing will detail the findings and outcomes of the two-year project including technical developments, community activities, data-driven researcher support, second-tier services, and blueprints for future API development and interoperability strategies.