Arquivo.pt at the IIPC Web Archiving Conference in Brussels

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The Arquivo.pt team attended the Web Archiving Conference (WAC) and the IIPC General Assembley in Brussels from April 20 to 23, 2026.

The Web Archiving Conference is the largest event dedicated to Internet preservation. It brings together initiatives from around the world, such as the Internet Archive, national libraries, and research centers that develop methodologies for using historical web content.

The International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC) is a consortium that seeks to bring together various web archiving initiatives, coordinating efforts to maintain and develop standards, tools, collections, and training.

The Belgian Web Archive

The KBR (De Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België), the Belgian National Library, located in the heart of Brussels, hosted the Web Archiving Conference, which drew approximately 250 participants. The conference’s opening session featured a presentation of the results and the conclusion of the pilot project for the Belgian Web Archive.

In 2017, Belgium launched a project called PROMISE ((PReserving Online Multiple Information: towards a Belgian Strategy) for the national Web archive. Starting in 2019, with funding from the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), a five-year pilot phase was conducted, culminating in the presentation of a web archive prototype in 2026. Partners in this project included the national archives, the State Archives of Belgium (AGR), and, on the research side, the Ghent University

The collection of Belgian web content was carried out under the existing legal deposit system for printed materials, which was adapted in December 2016 to include digital web content.

The PROMISE project used open-source tools shared by the IIPC community (for data collection, the Browsertrix-crawler from Webrecorder.net; for playback, the pywb software). Access to the content is restricted and limited to the library system, and the collection has been enriched with metadata and catalog information.

Presentations by Arquivo.pt

To showcase what Arquivo.pt has been doing to promote access and demonstrate the value of its service, we presented three presentations.

Image gallery

IIPC WAC 2026

Abertura da WAC 2026 na KBR
Equipa do Arquivo.pt no IIPC WAC
Apresentação de Vasco Rato
Apresentação de Pedro Gomes
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Abertura da WAC 2026 na KBR Equipa do Arquivo.pt no IIPC WAC Apresentação de Vasco Rato Apresentação de Pedro Gomes wac-iipc-memorial-cabon-footprint-1

The Bridges project at the Universidade de Évora is collaborating with Arquivo.pt

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Last updated on May 27th, 2026 at 11:34 am

Arquivo.pt is collaborating with the Bridges “Ponte Cultural”, in CIDEHUS – Centro Interdisciplinar de História, Culturas e Sociedades of Universidade de Évora (Portugal).

Arquivo.pt’s contribution consists of providing educational content on the preservation of content published on the Internet and curating special collections related to the project’s thematic focus, such as women, immigration, and regional content from the Alentejo in the blogosphere.

The BRIDGES, project, led by Principal Investigator María Zozaya, is a work held at University of Évora funded by PRR after a Portuguese National Contest by PLANAPP-FCT on Scicence for Policy (S4P25-LT 24: BRIDGES). Work “developed under the Science4Policy 2025, an anual Science for Policy Project call, an initiative promoted by Centre for Planning and Evaluation of Public Policies in partnership with the Foundation for Science and Technology, financed by Portugal’s Recovery and Resilience Plan”.

1st International Seminar “Women in Focus”

On March 17 and 18, an international seminar titled “Women in Focus: From Narrative to Representation in Language, Art, Heritage, and the Digital World” was held.

Arquivo.pt participated in the online session with a presentation titled “Women’s Visibility on the Web: A Mirror of Society Since the 1990s.” The presentation demonstrated how the archive contains historical web content that is useful for studying women’s issues. Three research projects that utilized Arquivo.pt were highlighted, namely:

As part of this initiative, Arquivo.pt is compiling a thematic collection on Portuguese women who have made significant contributions to culture, art, and science. The list of URLs will be available on the open data portal Dados.gov.

Materials of the online session

2nd International Seminar “I have a dream”

From April 15 to 17, the 2nd International Seminar of the BRIDGES Project was held, entitled: «I have a dream. À luz da diversidade: arte, cultura, políticas públicas e mundo digital» (In the Light of Diversity – Art, Culture, Public Policy, and the Digital World).

Erik Bran Marino and Rafael Prezado, doctoral students at the University of Évora, presented Narrative Monitoring: Analysis of Conspiracy Theories on Population Replacement in the Portuguese Web Archive (1996–2021).

On the Narrative Monitor website, one can view the results and take a quiz.

The project “Narrative Monitoring” is one of the winners of the 2025 Arquivo.pt Award, having placed third. It was developed by the CIDEHUS research team, consisting of Erik Bran Marino, Rafael Prezado, Ana Sofia Ribeiro, and Renata Vieira. It serves as an example of how Arquivo.pt is used in a research context.

The digital curator of Arquivo.pt addressed the topic “Data on Multiracial Diversity at Arquivo.pt,” demonstrating how the web has served as a space for freedom of expression and for self-affirmation or advocacy.

The work of archiving the Web and preserving its memory, in turn, requires initiative and community participation. Several international and national examples of this “activist” aspect of Web archiving were cited:

As part of this session, Arquivo.pt is compiling a thematic collection on migration and the PRCT (Comparative Analysis of Conspiracy Theories in Europe), based on the 150 search terms used in Erik Bran Marino’s research.

Materials of the online session

3rd International Seminar “Invisible barriers? Embracing diversity”

On May 13, 14, and 15, the third seminar, Invisible Limitations? Inclusion of Diversity Through Art, Culture, and the Digital World was held, focusing on the inclusion of intergenerational groups, the elderly, disadvantaged individuals, people with disabilities, and those with neurodivergent conditions (TDAH/ADHD, TEA).

Arquivo.pt participated in the online session with a guest expert, José Miguel Nogueira, a professor, member of CIES-iscte, and Principal Investigator of the Self-Determination & Inclusion by Theater Project (SDIT). José Miguel Nogueira spoke about this European project in which theater has made an exceptional contribution to the inclusion of people with autism. Finally, he challenged the audience to rethink the way they interact with people with autism.

As a special contribution to this session, the digital curator of Arquivo.pt identified and published a list of websites belonging to non-governmental organizations for people with disabilities that are registered with the Instituto Nacioanal de Reabilitação.

The topic of accessibility and the benefits it brings to society as a whole was given special attention during the presentation.