“There is nothing that solidifies and strengthens a nation like reading the
nation’s history, whether that history is recorded in books or
embodied in customs, institutions and monuments.”
Joseph Anderson (1836-1916)
American Congregational clergyman and author

The National Library Board (NLB), Singapore officially launched Phase 1 of its Web Archive Singapore on October 18, 2006. The aim is to archive “.sg websites” of national and historical significance. This is the National Library’s initiative to record and keep alive the nation’s web heritage and its many cyber-memories for posterity.

The National Library embarked on the project of archiving Singapore websites in 2005. The goal was to create an initial archive of 1,000 websites reflecting various aspects of Singapore life and heritage, in order to achieve a sense of community, national identity and rootedness among Singaporeans.  This is achieved through the archiving of information that shapes the national identity. 

The Web Archive Singapore (WAS) has exceeded its original target and currently holds more than 3,000 Singapore-related websites that showcase various social and historical facets of Singapore life. Coverage ranges from the official to the academic to the quirky; from government administration and education, to popular topics like arts and recreation, carefully selected to be part of the nation’s documentary heritage.

The web is increasingly used as a tool of social communication and interaction. Over time it forms a record of events that capture the milieu of a nation, and tracks the evolution and development of our national identity. Archiving these records will provide an invaluable source of documented heritage for Singapore’s present and future generations.  This understanding of our past will impact our future. It will create a sense of community and belonging, communal feelings commonly fostered by a good and strong archive.  

Identification and Selection

Phase 1 started out as a trial and test-bed. We identified and selected 1,000 sites for archiving covering the websites of government and government-related agencies, schools, trade unions, cooperatives, registered societies, including sports groups, arts groups and clan associations, voluntary and welfare organisations.

Criteria for Selection

The following criteria were used in selection:
a. Content of websites are authoritative and has research values 
These are sites that document and give first hand account of the organisation’s functions, programmes and activities.  Examples include: Government agency or society sites.

b. Content has national and historical significance
 These websites or webpages record events of national significance. Examples include: Four Million Smiles and General Election 2006.

c. Content has social and cultural significance
These are the websites that provide insights into the social and cultural life of Singapore. Examples of such sites include those covering the arts and heritage festivals, societies and associations.

Web Archive Singapore Phase 2

The websites archived in Phase 1 represents only a small percentage of what is available in the Singapore websphere. WAS Phase 2 is looking at “whole domain archiving”, which currently consists of about 72,000 registered domains. This will allow us to capture a representative snapshot of the Singapore Websphere once a year, using facilitative technologies like GRID computing in archiving and indexing. 

Web logs (commonly known as blogs) are changing the way the Internet is being used to publish and share information. Likened to ‘public journals’, blogs are used by people from all walks of life to express their views, concerns and beliefs on a topic, event or subject. While some have deemed blog information as transitory, there are certainly research and historical values in keeping blog information if events or issues of interest to Singaporeans are being heavily discussed on blogs. In addition, bloggers usually categorize their resources with the use of informally assigned, user-defined keyword, a process known as social tagging. As a national library, NLB has the responsibility to capture and preserve this social aspect of the digital culture. 

Selection criteria again play an important role in helping us to identify blogs that merit archiving.  These are blogs that have the following characteristics:     

• The content is produced by individuals who are authoritative and/or are known in their fields of knowledge (eg: Air-conditioned Nation blog owned by veteran journalist Cherian George, Rambling Librarian blog consisting of mostly library-related postings by a Librarian)
• The content is produced by personalities whose views and works are popular in public opinion or provide a good social commentary, e.g. popular blogs such as talkingcock.com, xiaxue, Tomorrow – Bulletin of Singapore Bloggers
• Award-winning blogs, e.g. mrbrown.com, which was a finalist in the Weblog Awards 2005 and the winner of Asia Blog Awards 2004
• Owned by organisations or societies, providing an alternative place for members to voice their comments (e.g. youth.sg blog, Blog Us owned by Reach Singapore)
• Blogs of Singapore leaders or celebrities (e.g. Minister George Yeo’s blog, hosted at Blogspot)

Thus, WAS Phase 2 will focus on capturing the wider Singapore web and selective blogs so that Singaporean content are representatively captured.  NLB will periodically review its archiving policy to ensure that the policies remain relevant to the needs of its user groups.  

Contributed by Siow Lian San, Senior Librarian, Digital Library Services, National Library Board