Legal deposit in
the digital area Archiving the French web at the
Bibliothèque nationale de France
Clément Oury Head of Digital Legal Deposit
Bibliothèque nationale de France
Is it worthwhile to
archive the web?
Is it a national library’s core mission?
How does it fit with national libraries’ other
missions and activities?
How can they tackle this huge challenge?
The web is a library
The web is a library
Or: all digital equivalents of library
holdings are available on the web
Online newspapers
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 6 6 21 mars 2012 Web archives as sources - Clément Oury -
Digital Humanities Luxembourg 6
Scholarly publications
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 7 7 21 mars 2012 Web archives as sources - Clément Oury -
Digital Humanities Luxembourg 7
Official publications
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 8 8 21 mars 2012 Web archives as sources - Clément Oury -
Digital Humanities Luxembourg 8
Photographs
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 9 9
Online literature and net-art
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 10 10 21 mars 2012 Web archives as sources - Clément Oury -
Digital Humanities Luxembourg 10
Audiovisual content
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 11 11 28 février 2013 Le dépôt légal de l'Internet - Clément Oury -
Présentation à l'ENSCI 11
Audiovisual content
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 12 12 21 mars 2012 Web archives as sources - Clément Oury -
Digital Humanities Luxembourg 12
E-books
The web is a library
The web is a
(fragile) library
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 15 15 21 mars 2012 Web archives as sources - Clément Oury -
Digital Humanities Luxembourg 15
Online newspapers
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 16
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 17 17
20 mars 2013 L'"archivage du Web"- Clément Oury - Forum
des archivistes, Angers 17
Web documents are
library documents
So national libraries are entitled to
save them
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 19
1537 : books
1672 : engravings
1925 : photographs
1938 : sounds
1975 : videos
1992 : radio, TV, software
2006 : the Internet
Legal deposit: 1537-…
“Are subject to legal deposit
all signs, signals, writings,
images, sounds or messages
of any kind communicated to
the public by electronic
means”
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 20
How to adapt a five centuries
old law to the web?
Defining borders: the French web
All .fr websites (+.re, .paris, etc.)
All websites on a French-owned TLD
All content produced on French territory
Archive every website at least once a year
No judgment on the website’s “value”
A mission shared with national audiovisual
institute (INA) for radio and TV websites
The web is not a
library
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 22
Or the web is not only the
world’s largest library
The web is big
2,5 millions of .fr websites
The web is fast
Web pages may change every day
The web is not only a publication
place
It is a place where people
communicate and interact
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 23 23 21 mars 2012 Web archives as sources - Clément Oury -
Digital Humanities Luxembourg 23
This is a publication
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 24 24
Is this a publication?
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 25
And this one?
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 26
The web is not a
library
And it is worthwhile to save it
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 27
Historical / sociological sources
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 28 28 21 mars 2012 Web archives as sources - Clément Oury -
Digital Humanities Luxembourg 28
Saving memories of
individuals
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 29
Access restrictions
Access is provided onsite only
on all computers in all BnF research reading
rooms
Access is restricted to “researchers” onsite
Not only scholars, but all citizens that have a
demonstrated need to access web archives
No preservation issues anymore but to enforce
Intellectual property rights
Personal data protection
Access will be opened in main regional libraries
The web is not a
library
It is impossible to save it all
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 31
Calendar year
Number of
websites
Broad crawls - each year
- 2,5 millions .fr
domains
Ongoing crawls: - running on the whole year
- news or reference websites
Project crawls : - one shots
- related to an event or
a theme
BnF “mixed model” of
harvesting
It is a national library
mission
But it is a shared responsibility
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 33
Focused crawls: who selects
websites?
Content curators
Within BnF : 12 collection and
legal deposit departments 12 « coordinators » 70 recommending
officers
Regional libraries 20 libraries associated for 2012 electoral crawl
University libraries and laboratories
Associations and individuals
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 34
National cooperation
Cooperation
for the 2012
presidential
and
parliamentary
elections
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 35
International cooperation
Digital legal deposit at the BnF - Clément Oury -
July 9th, 2013 36
New challenges and issues
arising… Harvesting new documents: e-books,
applications
Combine web crawls and direct deposit
Build collections at an international level
World War I
European Elections in 2014
Better indexing and better promotion of web
archives
Especially towards researchers communities
Questions ?
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