Overall, I’ve found it difficult to get a clear grasp on the full scope of digital preservation of congressional websites. Preservation has been somewhat confusing because the administrative organization of the agencies doing the preservation seems somewhat redundant. While the Government Printing Office, the Library of Congress, and the National Archives and Records Administration all have distinct missions, they all engage in very similar preservation work.
Perhaps this seeming redundancy is the reason that we’ve been unaware that the Library of Congress’s National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program is currently listing congressional websites as being among the sites they’re actively archiving (under its Web capture program).
It appears that access to the collection reaches only to 2002, so its hard to be confident that this material is still being archived, or how frequently this is being done.
If the Web capture program is an ongoing part of the NDIIPP (despite their likely funding shortfall), and if congressional member and committee webites are still being captured, I wonder if this isn’t a chance for NDIIP to partner with either the National Archives, the Clerk’s office, or even the Federal Depository Library Program to encourage access and provide redundant preservation?
Providing access to this type of digital record is certainly within the broad mission statements of NARA, or the office of the Clerk, or even the FDLP.
Imagine if this House page or this page had links to archived copies of each member or officer’s websites.
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