Name: Crystal Stephenson

Assignment 3: Planning a Web Archive Collection

Course: LIS6515 Web Archiving
Due: November 8, 2018
“State of Florida Elected Officials Web Archive”
Recent elections in the state of Florida have highlighted an opportunity for the

development of a comprehensive web archive aimed at preserving congressional and

gubernatorial web pages during times of transition from office. Pulling inspiration from the

successful End of Term (EOT) Web Archive project, initiated by the Library of Congress and

established to preserve and document changes in federal websites during presidential transitions

(End of Term Web Archive, 2018), the objective is to archive the web pages of Florida elected

officials during transitions in state government. While web archiving efforts currently exist to

preserve the websites of Florida government agencies through the Florida Department of State’s

Division of Library and Information Services, there is currently no initiative in place to preserve

state-operated web pages of elected officials or document changes in their transitions during

election years. The goal of the State of Florida Elected Officials (SOFEO) Web Archive project

is to archive the identified state websites to compliment the established preservation efforts in

place for government agencies and augment the current archive collections for purposes of state

heritage and legislative history.

Collaborative efforts are key to the project’s fruition, so the first points of contact for

assistance in the development of the SOFEO archive will be the Florida Department of State’s

Division of Library and Information Services, as well as the State Library of Florida, the Florida

State Historical Records Advisory Board, Friends of the State Library and Archives, the Florida

Memory project members, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services for guidance in the

creation and recruitment of a project team. It would be advisable that the Florida Department of

State house the main copy of the archive, while the State Archives of Florida holds a secondary

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copy, since they are a central repository for the archives of state government (State Library and

Archives of Florida (n.d.-a).

The Florida House of Representatives is made up of 120 members (Ballotpedia, 2018)

and State Senate comprised of 40 members (State of Florida, 2018), in addition to the two U.S.

Senators for Florida and one Governor. While the SOFEO archive will not be as broad in scope

and depth as the EOT project, there is a total number of 163 websites of interest required at a

higher frequency of acquisition than the EOT, which recommences every four years at the end of

each presidential term. Accordingly, this initiative will follow a selective method of criteria in

identification of 163 specific web resources for collection. Timing will be determined based on

election years when changes are likely to occur to current government officials’ main web pages

and new members are elected to office.

The SOFEO archive will harvest the 163 identified websites for the legislative and

executive branches of state government during election years, which are staggered according to

office. For instance, members of the Florida House of Representatives serve two-year terms,

while Florida Senate members and the Governor serve four-year terms, with 20 Senators up for

election every two years. All members of the legislature are term limited, so transitions in state

office occur with relative frequency. With this in mind, the 163 websites will be crawled three

times during election years; once in August to preserve existing pages prior to election, followed

by a second crawl in November of the same year in the days following the election results, and

finally, a third crawl will be performed once all elected officials are sworn into office for that

term. This will ensure that any changes are documented during times of transition and incoming

members’ pages are collected.

Following the Florida Department of State’s current standards of descriptive metadata, all

records will be presented in accordance with the Dublin Core metadata schema (State Library

and Archives of Florida, n.d.-b), including title, description, and date, inherently improving both

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searchability and accuracy of results. As remote harvesting is one of the most widely employed

methods of collection (Brown, 2006), the SOFEO web archive will use the free, open-source

crawler software, HTTrack, which is best suited for such a narrowly focused collection of

websites. This will allow for the download of identified URLs in the original site’s link-structure

and can generate basic JavaScript or Flash (HTTrack Website Copier, 2018), but considering the

format of websites selected for harvest, there are so few dynamic features (e.g. extensive use of

Flash content) on government officials’ main pages to navigate in the capture process, nor are the

websites updated at a high rate of frequency. As quality assurance is essential for any successful

web archive, and resources will be crawled on multiple occasions, a post-collection test of a

representative sample will follow to ensure collection is complete and free of corruption or

systematic errors.
The legalities of copyright infringement, intellectual property, and privacy issues are not

a relevant concern in this case, as the public records and information compiled of Florida elected

officials from their state-run websites should be the property of, and easily accessible to, the

people of the state. The State Archives of Florida preserves records of the functions and activities

of Florida’s executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government and outlines in detail

what constitutes public record (Florida Department of State, 2010). While most websites are

subject to some degree of approval or cooperation, the SOFEO web archive is based on the

recognized principles of open government, which is embodied in Florida Statutes, guaranteed by

the state Constitution, and enacted in Freedom of Information legislation. Pursuant to Chapter

119 of the Florida Statute, the Florida Supreme Court has interpreted the definition of a public

record “to encompass all materials made or received by an agency in connection with official

business which are used to perpetuate, communicate or formalize knowledge” (“Public Records

Request Manual”, 2009). In fact, the Court has held that “information stored in a computer is as

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much a public record as a written page in a book or tabulation in a file stored in a filing cabinet.”

Furthermore, in accordance with Florida Statute 257.36 regarding Records and Information

Management, the SOFEO archive would have the right to collect any content “for the selection

and preservation of records considered essential to the operation of government and to the

protection of the rights and privileges of citizens” (The Florida Senate, 2012).
A variety of public institutions in the state of Florida currently maintain web archives for

the preservation of legislative history and state heritage, but none have recognized the relevancy

of preserving the official websites of state elected officials particularly during times of transition.

Following the precedent of the End of Term Web Archive as a model, 163 state government web

pages have been identified for preservation and acquisition frequency determined by the electoral

calendar. As state congressional and gubernatorial officials are term-limited and election years

staggered, seats can turn over biannually throughout the state and should be documented

accordingly. The State of Florida Elected Officials Web Archive is poised to preserve the

identified websites for historical relevance and improve upon current efforts to archive

legislative policy and agendas for the citizens of Florida to access and research in the future.

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 References
Ballotpedia. (2018). Florida House of Representatives. Retrieved from
https://ballotpedia.org/Florida_House_of_Representatives
Brown, A. (2006). Archiving Websites. London: Facet Publishing.
Public Records Request Manual [Download]. (2009, March). Florida: Department of
Management Services.
End of Term Web Archive. (2018). Project Background. Retrieved from
http://eotarchive.cdlib.org/background.html
Florida Department of State. (2010). State Archives of Florida Collection Development
Policy [PDF file]. Retrieved from

https://dos.myflorida.com/media/32489/collectionpolicy2010.pdf
Florida Department of State. (2018). About Us - Division of Library and Information Services.
Retrieved from https://dos.myflorida.com/library-archives/about-us/
HTTrack Website Copier. (2018). Welcome. Retrieved from https://www.httrack.com
State Library and Archives of Florida. (n.d.-a). About Florida Memory. Retrieved from
https://www.floridamemory.com/about/
State Library and Archives of Florida. (n.d.-b). Digitization Guidelines for the Florida Memory
Program. Retrieved from https://www.floridamemory.com/about/guidelines.php
State of Florida. (2018). 2018-2020 Senators - The Florida Senate. Retrieved from
http://www.flsenate.gov/Senators/#Senators
The Florida Legislature. (2018). The 2018 Florida Statutes. Retrieved from
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0200-

0299/0257/Sections/0257.36.html
The Florida Senate. (2012). Chapter 257 Section 36 - 2012 Florida Statutes. Retrieved from
https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2012/257.36

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