Call for Papers: 2020 Web Archiving Conference

October 19, 2019

Expanding Horizons: how we build, use, and sustain web archives

In 2020 the International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC) Web Archiving Conference (WAC) will be proudly hosted in Montréal, by Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ), from May 12-13, 2020. The events are organised in partnership with Library and Archives Canada and University of Toronto Libraries. The conference will be followed by a two-day Archives Unleashed datahon that will bring together a small group of participants to gain a hands-on experience of working with web archives. More information about the datathon at: http://netpreserve.org/ga2020/datathon

The IIPC WAC represents a unique opportunity for web archiving practitioners, collection managers, technologists, researchers, and strategists to engage with and develop the global community of practise.

Proposals on all aspects of web archiving practice as well as researching and using web archives are invited. Of particular interest for this year’s conference are proposals addressing the conference theme Expanding Horizons: how we build, use, and sustain web archives. Proposals from and related to Canadians/Canada, as well as from the perspective of novice users and researchers alike, are warmly welcomed. Further relevant topics include but are not limited to:

Building web archives

• Harvesting approaches, tool development, and related challenges
• Collection development and curation
• Legal issues related to collecting and accessing content
• Ethical concerns

Enhancing web archives 

• Capturing ephemeral and “non-traditional” web resources, emerging formats and domains
• Archiving the long tail, beyond the top 10 blue links
• Archiving social media (beyond APIs) and (mobile) apps
• Archiving non-English language sites
• Multi-lingual collections and their impact on curation

Sustaining web archives 

• Archival business models
• Economic or political successes and failures
• Shared infrastructure

Researching web archives

• Researcher collaboration models, experimental approaches, use cases, workflows
• Building and maintaining research tools
• Obstacles in accessing, using, and analyzing web archive holdings
• Collaborative and interdisciplinary projects with GLAM institutions and beyond
• Data sharing, publication, protocols, provenance
• Computational linguistic research on multi-language collections

Value of collections

• Articulate and demonstrate worth, internally within an institution and beyond
• (Collaborative) collection development
• Collection assessment and metrics

Training and teaching

• Developing expertise among new practitioners
• Sharing expertise and teaching materials among organizations engaged in web archiving
• Teaching methodologies and best practices for practitioners/students/researchers

The WAC 2020 program committee invites proposals for:

• 20-minute presentations (including 5 minutes for discussion)
• Posters and demos with accompanying 5-minute lightning talk
• 60-minute panel discussions
• 60, 90, or 120-minute conference-themed workshops
• Tutorials focused on tools, technologies, or practical exercises

All proposals must be written in English and submitted via EasyChair. French-English simultaneous translation services will be available during the conference. Speakers who would like to present in French are invited to do so but have to indicate their preference in the submitted document. Proposals should outline how their contribution advances the understanding of topics related to the conference themes, how it relates to previous work (if applicable), and what impact it may have on the community.

Proposals for:

Presentations:

• Must be submitted as an abstract of between 300 and 500 words

Posters:

• Must be submitted as an abstract of between 200 and 300 words

Workshops and Tutorials:

• Must be submitted as an abstract of between 800 and 1,000 words
• Must include information about coordinator(s), format, target audience, anticipated number of participants, and technical requirements
• Must include details about expected outcome(s)

Panels:

• Must be submitted as an abstract of between 800 and 1,000 words
• Must include information about panel setup (moderator(s), contributor(s), etc)
• Must include details about the topic(s) of discussion, how panelists will contribute to the discussion, how the audience will be included in the discussion, and some anticipated outcome(s) of the discussion

All submissions are due by December 1st 2019.

The program committee will review all submissions and send out notifications of acceptance/rejection by mid January. For questions, please send an email to archivageweb@banq.qc.ca

(Via IIPC GA and WAC 2020)