Catalogue description Regularly Archived Government Websites

Details of ZWEB
Reference: ZWEB
Title: Regularly Archived Government Websites
Description:

The ZWEB code was set up in 2003 for government websites archived regularly as part of The National Archives' website collection policy. For information about the appraisal decisions informing the scheduling and selection of these websites, please refer to Operational Selection Policy OSP 27: The selection of government websites.

The selected websites are gathered from the Internet in a variety of ways, by various organisations including the Internet Archive, the European Archive and the UK Web Archiving Consortium. They form part of the UK Government Web Archive, along with one-off gathers which are collected in response to topical issues or unusual circumstances (such as capturing the website of a body not regularly collected prior to it winding up), or as part of a themed collection. The frequency at which each website is gathered is scheduled, from weekly, to monthly, six-monthly or annually. These frequencies can be subject to change, especially where the functions of the body represented by the website alter. Some websites which were transferred directly to The National Archives from government departments rather than being gathered from the Internet can be found in the UK Government Web Archive.

For further information on the gathering process, please see the UK Government Web Archive.

ZWEB was originally created to comprise the following series, based upon distinct areas of government function.

  • ZWEB 1: Defence and Foreign Policy: Government Websites.
  • ZWEB 2: Justice and Internal Security: Government Websites.
  • ZWEB 3: Environment Work and National Finances: Government Websites.
  • ZWEB 4: Health and Education: Government Websites.
  • ZWEB 5: Culture Media and Sport: Government Websites.
  • ZWEB 6: Regulation of Market-Provided Services: Government Websites.
  • ZWEB 7: Government and Constitutional Arrangements: Government Websites.

NOTE: Since the end of 2009, archived websites have been incorporated into The National Archives online catalogue under the departmental code of the creating body.

Date: from 1996
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Physical description: 7 series
Access conditions: No records held at The National Archives in this departmental code
Immediate source of acquisition:

UK Web Archiving Consortium

Internet Archive

European Archive

Administrative / biographical background:

The Internet Archive is a US public non-profit organisation that was founded with the purpose of building an 'Internet library' offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format. Founded in 1996 and located in the Presidion of San Francisco, the Archive has been receiving data donations from Alexa Internet and others. In late 1999, the organisation started to grow to build more well-rounded collections.

The European Archive is a digital library created in 2004 as a non-profit foundation in Amsterdam. It acts as a technological partner for cultural institutions to foster free online access to European cultural heritage, and is developing an open Web archive, in partnership with the Internet Archive. In 2005 the European Archive took over from the Internet Archive responsibility for the majority of The National Archives' scheduled gathers of websites.

The UK Web Archiving Consortium (UKWAC) is a partnership of six leading UK institutions (the British Library, the National Library of Wales, the National Library of Scotland, JISC, the Wellcome Trust and The National Archives), who work collaboratively to select and archive UK websites for future access. The project began in June 2004 and makes use of shared expertise, costs and facilities to gather snapshots of web archives from the Internet using PANDAS software, which was developed by the National Library of Australia.

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