Arquivo.pt took part in the eArchiving Portugal workshop, which was held at the Instituto Superior Técnico on 25 February 2025, at the invitation of Professor José Borbinha, one of the first people to do web archiving in Portugal when he worked at the Biblioteca Nacional in the 90’s.
The event had a hybrid format with 50 in-person and 270 online participants and was open to all public and private organisations concerned with digital preservation and information management in any type or format. This includes the content of websites and social networks!
The heads of municipalities and local government organisations took part in the event, responding to the call from the Direção-Geral do Livro, dos Arquivos e das Bibliotecas (DGLAB). This call for people was an opportunity to show how Arquivo.pt can help preserve institutional websites and comply with Portaria n.º 112/2023, de 27 de abril.
eArchiving, a European initiative born in Portugal
The eArchiving Initiative‘s main objective is digital cultural heritage and was created at a meeting of European partners in Lisbon.
‘It was precisely in this room (the José Tribolet room at the Instituto Superior Técnico) that eArchiving began eleven years ago, on 29 May 2014,’ recalled José Borbinha (INESC ID, host and organiser of the workshop.
The eArchiving initiative is managed on behalf of the European Commission by the E-ARK Consortium, which includes Portuguese partners KEEP Solutions LDA and INESC-ID. The consortium also includes the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH, the lead partner, and the DLM Forum MTÜ.
Janet Anderson, manager of eArchiving, showed the progress made in eleven years in the field of digital preservation. The projects funded by the European Union within the consortium have resulted in the development of specifications, software, training and knowledge about digital preservation.
This was followed by a presentation of contributions to digital preservation in Portugal: DGLAB, by Pedro Penteado, Centro Hospitalar São João, by Fernanda Gonçalves, Ministério da Justiça, by Alexandra Lourenço and Cristina Soares, Arquivo.pt, by digital curator Ricardo Basílio.
Finnaly, Miguel Ferreira spoke on behalf of DLM Forum MTÜ , a community in which KEEP Solutions LDA participates by developing software. Taking a more technical approach, he showed how the metadata in the E-Ark packaging specifications is structured to fulfil the requirements of digital preservation.
How to use Arquivo.pt to preserve institutional websites
Digital preservation requires collaboration, both internally and externally between organisations, and this workshop served that purpose: sharing good practices, disseminating tools and services and connecting people.
Arquivo.pt highlighted three services from its catalogue for preserving content published on the web:
- High-quality archive of websites (on-demand)
- Memorial preserves your old website information before deactivating it
- Training on web preservation
Arquivo.pt services can be used, for example, by municipalities to preserve content published on institutional websites.
Arquivo.pt training, such as webinars or face-to-face sessions, are useful for empowering organisations to take care of institutional content, including social media content that requires an alternative strategy.