Exploring skills and training requirements for the web archiving community
Helena Byrne, Juan-José Bóte-Vericad, Sharon Healy · 2024
This chapter aims to develop more discussion on the skills and training requirements for librarians and archivists who participate in web archiving as part of their role in a cultural heritage organization. It examines current trends in the challenges for library and archival roles in a digital context, and then takes a more focused look at the challenges, and skills and training requirements for librarians and archivists who participate in web archiving as part of their role in a cultural heritage organization. Further to this, we examine the landscape of training materials and courses, which are being organized by various organizations and institutions, and then assess the status of training opportunities that are available through the curriculum of information studies courses in higher education across Britain, Ireland, and Spain. Overall, the chapter finds that web archiving presents some unique challenges, which require additional skills for librarians and archivists because of the characteristics of the web and continual advances in technology. It further finds that a collaborative transdisciplinary approach is needed when it comes to designing new curricula for web-archiving education and this should be representative of the multiple stakeholders, who participate in the activities of the web-archiving lifecycle, including stakeholders engaging in transnational web-archiving projects.