Negotiating the archives of UK web space

Abstract

The archived web is an enormously rich primary source for the study of the recent past, yet it remains unappreciated and underexploited even by contemporary historians. This chapter examines why this should be the case and argues that it is now critical for historians to begin to engage with web archives. It explores the changing relationship between archivists, librarians, and historians, which is beginning to break down researchers’ reluctance to work with born digital materials at scale. It concludes by proposing an exciting future for (digital) historical research, which employs a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches to recover the lives and voices of ordinary people.

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