Last week saw the first meeting of a new advisory group, brokered by the IHR, to provide a forum for issues of common concern between historians and the web archiving team at the British Library. Composed of historians of contemporary Britain, and scholars interested in history and the media and in the state of digital history, it will look to explore:
- the representation of the historic past online (“history on the web”)
- the way in which the web is changing the nature of scholarly communication (the “history of the web”)
- current and forthcoming events and issues, web representations of which will be of importance to historians of the early twenty-first century
At the first meeting, the group discussed, amongst other things, creating a web archive of the present climate of austerity in public spending. Discussion was lively and thought-provoking, an excellent start to the work of the group which is to meet every six months. For further details, contact Peter Webster (peter.webster@sas.ac.uk)