The CRL Political Communications Web Archiving project, undertaken in 2003-2004, explored methodologies for the systematic, sustainable preservation of Web-based political communications. Because these important communications comprise a valuable source of information for historical studies and the social sciences, but are by nature fugitive and susceptible to loss, it is important to ensure their long-term survival and broad availability for research. Drawing upon the expertise of technology and subject specialists at New York University, Cornell University, Stanford University, and the University of Texas–Austin, the cooperative effort built upon investigations underway at those institutions and drew from the broader community—including the Library of Congress, the California Digital Library and the Internet Archive—to identify methodologies that can generally be applied by the larger research community and across regions.
The project focused on Web sites (as defined in wireframe document), including those created by individuals and institutions. These included sites of political parties, movements, radical organizations or NGOs in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Europe. Related materials under the political communications rubric that might be addressed by subsequent investigations included listserv digests, RSS feeds, databases, and deeper Web sites that are password-protected or otherwise designed to be robot-restricted.