digital preservation

Last updated on August 17th, 2022 at 08:39 am

Arquivo.pt has been collaborating with Agência Modernização Administrativa (AMA) with the aim of improving the preservation of Public Administration websites.

Collaboration is based on three action points:

• identification and collection of all Public Administration websites;
• integration of end-of-life websites into the Arquivo.pt Memorial service (eg. OTAN Medical Conference 2009);
• training in preserving open data published online.

AMA is the public organisation responsible for promoting digital means in Public Administration and aims to modernise and simplify citizens’ access to State services.

Arquivo.pt is a service operated by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia I.P. that preserves data published on the Web between 1996 and the present day, making them accessible to any citizen for memory and research purposes.

EU open data directive includes documents on websites

The Directive (EU) 2019/1024 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on open data and the re-use of public sector information stipulates the following:

“(30) This Directive lays down the definition of the term ‘document’ and that definition should include any part of a document. The term ‘document’ should cover any representation of acts, facts or information — and any compilation of such acts, facts or information — whatever its medium (paper, or electronic form or as a sound, visual or audiovisual recording.
…
(34) To facilitate re-use, public sector bodies should, where possible and appropriate, make documents, including those published on websites, available through an open and machine-readable format and together with their metadata, at the best level of precision and granularity, in a format that ensures interoperability
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(35) A document should be considered to be in a machine-readable format if it is in a file format that is structured in such a way that software applications can easily identify, recognise and extract specific data from it. Data encoded in files that are structured in a machine-readable format should be considered to be machine-readable data. A machine-readable format can be open or proprietary. They can be formal standards or not.
…
(60) The Commission should facilitate the cooperation among Member States and support the design, testing, implementation and deployment of interoperable electronic interfaces that enable more efficient and secure public services.
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Arquivo.pt is a public service that has the mission of preserving documents published on Internet sites to enable their long-term open access and provides interoperable electronic interfaces (APIs) for their automatic processing.

The Portuguese Law No. 68/2021 of 2021-08-26 approves the general principles on open data and transposes the European Directive.

Arquivo.pt was certified as a Public Administration open data provider

The AMA recognized Arquivo.pt as a public service and open data provider and awarded its certification seal on the Open Data Portal.

Arquivo.pt collects general information published on the Web of interest to the Portuguese community. However, it is also responsible for the preservation of Public Administration websites, such as the Portal do Governo, in collaboration with the Management Center for the Government Electronic Network (CEGER).

Any citizen can access the open data resulting from these historical archives and, for example, search for official information published on the websites of successive governments.

In 2021, Arquivo.pt provided open access to over 10 billion files (721 TB) from 27 million websites. The open data preserved by Arquivo.pt can be explored through the search interface, automatically through API (https://arquivo.pt/api) or by reusing derived datasets.

Derived datasets available on the Open Data Portal

Besides the original web artefacts preserved at Arquivo.pt, this service has generated open datasets derived from its activities, which are now available in open access so that they can be reused:

• Agrupamentos de Escolas ou Escolas não Agrupadas: websites e histórico de versões no Arquivo.pt – Agosto 2021
• Festivais de música em Portugal: websites e histórico no Arquivo.pt
• Freguesias de Portugal: websites e histórico de versões no Arquivo.pt – Agosto 2021
• Municípios portugueses: websites e histórico no Arquivo.pt
• Páginas do Governo de Portugal nas redes sociais e histórico de versões no Arquivo.pt
• Partidos políticos em Portugal: websites e histórico no Arquivo.pt
• Publicações periódicas portuguesas (jornais e revistas): websites e histórico no Arquivo.pt
• Rádios em Portugal: websites e histórico no Arquivo.pt
• Televisão em Portugal: websites e histórico no Arquivo.pt
• Turismo nos websites e canais dos municípios
• Unidades de Investigação e Desenvolvimento FCT 2019: websites e histórico no Arquivo.pt
• Universidades e de Institutos Politécnicos: websites e histórico no Arquivo.pt 
• Websites da Administração Pública no portal eportugal.gov.pt
• Websites dos projetos de Investigação & Desenvolvimento financiados pela Comissão Europeia: FP4, FP5, FP6, FP7
• Websites dos projetos de Investigação & Desenvolvimento financiados pela Comissão Europeia: H2020
• Websites do Governo Regional da Madeira e histórico no Arquivo.pt
• Websites do Governo Regional dos Açores e histórico de versões no Arquivo.pt

Resources list

• Directive (EU) 2019/1024 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on open data and the re-use of public sector information
• Arquivo.pt page on the open data portal Dados.gov.pt
• Arquivo.pt APIs

Video presentation at the IIPC Web Archiving Conference 2022