Digital Libraries and Digital Archiving The Bahá’í World Centre Library experiment Bryn Deamer 19 March 2002

A depository Library for the Bahá’í Community. Established 1977 at the Bahá’í World Centre Haifa, Israel. Currently 17 FTE – only one archiving electronic items.

Outline: How we got to where we are. What materials are being saved. How are they saved. Some of the problems encountered.

Our internet History: Full time connection established First Intranet pages in Lynx First PC in the Library c Enterprise wide move to GUI using Windows /99. Updated to Windows 2000 Professional.

Web Design Criteria: Use only system wide tools as much as feasible. –But Webstripper” had to be added to save web sites. Simple navigation based on known customer usage patterns. –primarily geographic.

Digital materials collected. Community Newsletters: 1.Fully Formatted: eg. Word, PDF. 2.Semi Formatted plain text s. 3.HTML formatted s. (saved via Outlook Web access) 4.HTML web pages saved directly from the Web.

Thesis and Dissertations.

Articles from Online Newspaper and Journals. First year’s index in textual format:

Articles from Online Newspaper and Journals. Second year in Table format for ease of sorting in spreadsheet.

Sound files from Web Radio: E.g. BBC programs. –(Web page saved as screen shot – hot spot added) –Free recording software used on home PC to overcome block on streaming audio at work.

National Community web pages (proposal only) E.g. Russia (note font challenges). Save on an annual basis.

How are these items saved? Formatted files received by simply saved to C: drive and “dragged and dropped” into correct FrontPage Web folder. HTML and text s saved using Web Access to Outlook to create “simple” HTML files. Individual Web pages saved using I.E. “save as” function. Multiple pages/entire web sites saved using “Webstripper”. Sound recorded with free software on PC at home out of office hours.

Major problems: Special Effects on some Web pages just cannot be saved. Loss of context in advertising when Online articles saved. FrontPage cannot handle large webs, requiring a new “web” each year, seamlessly linked to from one index web. No access to the collection yet from the Library’s primitive WEB OPAC. –Some items linked “backwards” simply to remind users that they are looking at a Library Collection.

CONCLUSIONS Brewster Kahl’s Internet Archive our greatest hope. Nevertheless, this experiment in saving a very specific sub-set of the web has been intriguing and will continue. Full subject access to the digital collection will depend on the purchase of an Integrated Library Management System for the Library.

Bryn Deamer ( ) Electronic Information Systems Librarian Bahá’í World Centre Library Haifa, Israel Electronic Information Systems Librarian: Public web page: Internet Librarian International 2002.