Arquivo.pt was present at the 6th RESAW Conference for researchers in the Digital Humanities, Media and Communication and other areas, on the theme of ‘The Datafied Web’, which took place at the University of Siegen, Germany, from 4 to 6 June 2025.
Initially, RESAW brought together European researchers, but now it brings together researchers from all over the world and has become a unique forum of its kind. In 2025, it had more than 100 participants. It brings together the best in the field of using web archives in research.
Niels Brügger, Professor of Media and Communication at Aaharus University in Denmark, has been its main driving force for 10 years.
Other leading researchers with studies on web archives are: Valerie Schafer from the University of Luxembourg, Jane Winters from the University of London, Anne Helmond from the University of Utrecht, Susan Aasman from the University of Groningen, Sophie Gebeil from Aix-Marseille University and Ian Millingan from the University of Waterloo.
This year’s theme “The Datafied Web” addressed the issue of the datification of the Web, from its beginnings in the 1990s to the present day, marked by massive data processing and the use of Artificial Intelligence.
Why would a web archive take part in an academic meeting?
Arquivo.pt has been a regular participant in RESAW since 2019, as it wants to make itself increasingly known as a service for national and international researchers.
Thanks to participation in international events such as RESAW, several publications have appeared that use and refer to Arquivo.pt. Any researcher with Internet access can search the information preserved on Arquivo.pt, use the APIs, process information or train their models.
We invite Portuguese researchers to take part in this meeting, as we have been the only Portuguese presence in several editions. We have an accessible web archive, ready to use, which is not the case in other countries. We would like to see researchers in the fields of Digital Humanities and Media and Communication in Portugal using Arquivo.pt more often and actively participating in meetings like RESAW.
Arquivo.pt’s contribution to RESAW 2025
Arquivo.pt contributed two presentations to the 2025 edition of the RESAW meeting, held at the University of Siegen. The first was about the Arquivo.pt APIs and their application in a research context, by Vasco Rato. The second was about the open datasets and lists of websites on topics and events that Arquivo.pt has prepared to help researchers start exploring archived information in greater depth.
Arquivo.pt took part in the workshop entitled “Digital preservation: tools and practices”, promoted by the Faculty of Letters of the University of Coimbra, on the afternoon of May 7, 2025. Moderated by Inês Santos, we highlight the initial panel with excellent speeches by Moisés Rockembach (University of Coimbra), Humberto Innarelli (Unicamp, Brazil) and Daniel Gomes (Arquivo.pt, digital service of FCCN-FCT).
The aim of the meeting was to offer the community a critical reflection on new trends in digital preservation tools and practices.
Digital preservation is a cross-cutting issue for organizations, as they all produce and generate information in digital format. There is a growing range of tools and solutions that promise greater efficiency in information processing. Many are labeled Artificial Intelligence. Such an abundance of products and frameworks calls for greater discussion and a critical approach. And this was achieved brilliantly by the panel of speakers.
Three approaches to Artificial Intelligence and Digital Preservation
This meeting brought together three authors of works on digital preservation at the Amphitheatre III of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Coimbra and discussed different approaches.
Moisés Rockembach, co-author with Caterina Pavão of Arquivamento da Web e preservação digital (Archiving the Web and Digital Preservation), the first work in Portuguese on web archives, focused his presentation on the impact of Artificial Intelligence on digital preservation systems, namely on searching for and accessing information, in classification and indexing processes, for example. With regard to the impact of the new tools that digital technology offers us, he referred to a phrase by Demi Gretscko: “The process of searching for and capturing information described in the text could certainly be improved in the future, especially when considering the contribution of new tools, such as those of Artificial Intelligence”.
There are Artificial Intelligence tools that allow interesting access to information through novelty and format. Archiving must take this reality into account and test the extent to which it can transform the way in which many types of content are disseminated and accessed. One example to illustrate this idea was the presentation of a Podcast generated by Artificial Intelligence from An example to illustrate this idea was the presentation of a Podcast generated by Artificial Intelligence, based on chapter 2 of the book on Web Archives, which deals with digital preservation policies.
Humberto Innarelli, author of Criptex da preservação digital (Digital preservation cryptex), coordinator of the Arquivo Edgard Leuenroth (AEL) and specialist archival researcher at Unicamp, São Paulo and PhD professor at the Paula Souza Centre, São Paulo, posed the question of the future of digital preservation. Until now, the practice for preserving dynamic digital content has been to convert it into static documents. On the other hand, information is increasingly given to us dynamically, from databases or algorithms and Artificial Intelligence. What’s the next step? Archival practice needs to look not only at metadata, as it has done in recent years, but also at what explains how the information was generated (what we might call paradata). This is the only way to put archives and digital preservation in the long-term perspective. A hundred or two hundred years from now we should still be able to access the digital information produced today.
Daniel Gomes, editor of the book The Past Web and founder of Arquivo.pt, discussed the issue of Artificial Intelligence as it relates to non-artificial, human-produced content. What added value do tools that generate text, images, audio or video bring? If we consider, for example, that a Podcast on digital preservation used a book written by a human author as its basis, what new knowledge did it generate? Little or none. So, what has come to be called Artificial Intelligence can be considered a way of presenting human knowledge and in no way exempts humanity from continuing to think, research and produce new knowledge.
Arquivo.pt preserves content that has been published by individuals and organizations and in this sense is a unique source of its kind. Information published on the web is important for reporting and better understanding recent history, since the 1990s. Any Artificial Intelligence tool will have to go back to the point where the information was created by people. The human origin of the content preserved by Arquivo.pt, and the same can be said of traditional archives, makes them of enormous value, even considering their economic value. How much is the information stored in a web archive worth?
New MOOC (Massive Online Open Course) about web archiving
Arquivo.pt data can be processed by Artificial Intelligence. The works competing for the Arquivo.pt Award have already demonstrated this, as have projects such as GlórIA, a Large Language Model developed at NOVA-FCT.
Finally, Ricardo Basílio, digital curator, showed how anyone can save a page or an entire website on their own computer in a standardized format, compatible with web archives. ArchiveWeb.page and browsertrix-crawler were used for this, as training tools. This practice allows the community to be increasingly active in preserving institutional information published on the Web.
Agenda
14h30 Panel – Moderator: Inês Santos, University of Coimbra
Digital Preservation and Artificial Intelligence – Moisés Rockembach, University of Coimbra – Slides
Cryptex for Digital Preservation: The Next Step – Humberto Innarelli, Unicamp – Slides
Arquivo.pt and Web Preservation – Daniel Gomes, FCCN-FCT – Slides
16h00 Break
Open Data for Research. Automatic information processing through APIs – Vasco Rato, FCCN-FCT – Slides
The National Library of Norway was the host institution for this international event. The Norwegian Web Archive is part of the Library’s mission and is held in a second location specialising in digital preservation, in the city of Mo i Rana, in the centre of the country.
The first day, 8 April, was dedicated to the General Assembly, exclusively for members of the consortium, and to the working groups in which Arquivo.pt plays an active role. The Content Development Working Group is dedicated to the creation of thematic collections and has the participation of Arquivo.pt in the ‘Street Art’ collection. The Training Working Group creates training content and training actions, such as IIPC webinars and face-to-face workshops.
The Web Archiving Conference was held on 9 and 10 April, an event open to all entities and initiatives related to web preservation and archiving.
Arquivo.pt’s contribution
Arquivo.pt presented its services and initiatives for interacting with the community, such as its collaboration with the Sines Municipal Archive in preserving content of local interest. The concern with access to content, both for researchers and for citizens in general, is an aspect that is highly appreciated by the IIPC community.
Arquivo.pt toolkit for web archiving – Lightning talk session 1 – Daniel Gomes – Slides, video
Collaborative collections at Arquivo.pt: four years of recordings from the city of Sines (Portugal) – Lightning talk session 4 – Ricardo Basílio – Slides, notes, video
API/Bulk access and its usage – Poster slam – Vasco Rato – Poster
Arquivo.pt annual awards: a glimpse since 2018 – Poster slam – Daniel Gomes – Slides
This Webinar Cycle, dedicated to the preservation of cultural memory published on the Web, is a collaboration between APDSI and Arquivo.pt, the FCCN digital services of the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia.
Luís Vidigal, Founding Partner of APDSI, Filipa Fixe and João Tavares, Board Members, introduced the theme of each session and the Arquivo.pt team showed how the preservation of web content works, allowing organizations and citizens to access the web of the past.
The four sessions had a total of 121 participants.
Program
Webinar 1 – March 20 – Arquivo.pt: a new tool for researching the past. Daniel Gomes, Head of Arquivo.pt – Vídeo, slides
Webinar 2 – March 25 – To publish well, to preserve well. Pedro Gomes, Arquivo.pt Collections Manager – Vídeo, slides
Webinar 3 – March 27 – Access and automatic processing of information preserved from the Web through APIs. Vasco Rato, Web developer, Vídeo, Slides
Webinar 4 – April 1 – Archiving the Web: do-it-yourself! Ricardo Basílio, Digital Curator – Video, slides
Professor José Borbinha, eArchiving workshop, 25 February 2025, at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon (José Tribolet Room)
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.
Professor José Borbinha, better than anyone, knows how to tell in the first person the small, almost epic episodes, the actions of the first ‘heroes’ that led to the creation of a web archive in Portugal. He sees Arquivo.pt as an essential service when it comes to digital preservation and safeguarding organisations’ communication heritage.
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!
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.
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:
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.
Arquivo.pt was recognised in the ‘Promoting a more Innovative and Digital Society’ category.
This category highlights the innovative aspect of organisations’ digital transition.
The manager of Arquivo.pt, Daniel Gomes, and the web developer in charge of Arquivo.pt’s collections, Pedro Gomes, were present at the ceremony, which took place in Oeiras on 3 December 2024.
Daniel Gomes explains how a web preservation service contributes to a more sustainable information society, in a video prepared for the awards ceremony.
The Digital Transformation Award (4th edition in 2024) aims to ‘recognise and disseminate best practices in the adoption and implementation of information and communication technologies (ICT), with a view to a more digital society sustained by public and private institutions that are more efficient and closer to the citizen’ (APDSI website).
The 2024 edition of this award received 33 nominations in 3 categories:
Effectiveness/Efficiency of Organisations
Proximity to Citizens and a More Inclusive Society
The aim of this joint FCT team was precisely to bring about the meeting and sharing of experiences between various institutions that inevitably have to manage information, both in traditional formats such as paper and in digital formats.
The meeting had 243 participants and 29 speakers throughout the day. Nine of the twenty-seven presentations were submitted for a session called ‘Community Space’.
Digital information was the main theme of the speeches. At the opening, the Head of the DGLAB – Direção Geral do Livro, dos Arquivos e das Bibliotecas (Directorate for Books, Archives and Libraries), Silvestre Lacerda, recalled that the DGLAB was a pioneer among public organisations in tackling the issue of digital preservation. FCT vice-president Francisco Santos emphasised the economic value of data for scientific research.
Digital preservation is not just about technology, as Henrique São Mamede, Professor at Universidade Aberta, INESC TEC, said at the opening conference. It’s also about people, the human factor, the environment outside organisations and new sensibilities such as sustainability and ecology. Hence the importance of creating bridges, of using Artificial Intelligence, for example, in conjunction with ethics. Presentation.
Throughout the day, four panels brought together presentations on various preservation contexts such as the digitisation of sound, image and video, research data, regulatory frameworks, management systems for digitised or born-digital information, dissemination and access, and use in academic research.
Panel 1: Digital preservation initiatives and realities
The first panel was moderated by João Gomes, Director of Advanced Services at FCT, and brought to the table the diversity of contexts in which the issue of preservation and access arises. Here we highlight one aspect of each presentation and invite you to follow the links to learn more about these initiatives.
Moisés Rockemback, Professor at the University of Coimbra and co-author of the book Arquivamento da web e preservação digital (Web archiving and digital preservation), spoke about the first initiatives carried out in Brazil to preserve content published on the Web. The websites of the candidates in the Brazilian elections, for example, are ephemeral by nature but have become material for historiographical research by being preserved in a web archive. From a more theoretical perspective, he addressed the issue of memory. Preserving the web allows us to bring to light events that were only broadcast on digital media such as the web and, in this sense, postpones the end of history expressed in the metaphor of the ‘Dark Age’, a time of darkness, empty of information. Presentation.
Pedro Penteado, Director of Archival and Standardisation Services, presented a set of instruments that the DGLAB has developed, such as the Macro Estrutura Funcional (MEF) (Macro Functional Structure, the Avaliação Suprainstitucional da Informação Arquivística (ASIA) (Super-institutional Assessment of Archival Information) project and the Lista Consolidada na Plataforma CLAV (Consolidated List on the CLAV Platform), which allows the different public administration bodies to comply with legislation and standardise classification and assessment practices. He recalled that these tools are flexible to meet the specific needs of organisations. Presentation.
Pedro Príncipe, Head of the Documentation Services Division at the University of Minho, spoke about research data. The preservation of and access to data is fundamental to the production of science. To achieve this, it is necessary to combine initiatives and work in networks and create communities of practice. The GDI Forum is an example of how useful it is to meet professionals. Certification is highly recommended, as demonstrated by the University of Minho, which has certified its repository, as it is an extra reason to create robustness and to achieve the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) objectives. Presentation.
Hilário Lopes, RTP’s Deputy Director of Institutional Relations and Archive, described the path to digitalisation that has completely changed the way we access the RTP archive (Portuguese Radio and Televison). If until 2001 digitisation was done on request, from that year onwards the contents were massively digitised. Since 2007, the contents have been accessible in digital format, which has facilitated access and use. RTP Memória and Portal RTP are two examples of access to the audiovisual heritage of public radio and television. Presentation.
Panel 2: Preserving and reusing Web information
The theme of web archiving was highlighted in the second panel, moderated by Daniel Gomes, manager of Arquivo.pt and its initiator on 8 November 2007.
Ricardo Basílio, digital curator at Arquivo.pt, presented the online exhibition ‘Memories of 25 April on the Internet’, created in collaboration with the 50 Years of 25 April Commemorative Commission, based on preserved web pages. Select pages about the 25 April celebrations across the country were highlighted through a guided tour of the exhibition. Presentation.
António Campos and Hélder Mestre, from the Arquivo Municipal de Sines (Sines City Council Archive), showed how, since 2020, they have been preserving web content of local interest in collaboration with Arquivo.pt. They record web pages with ArchiveWeb.page, a Webrecorder tool, send a copy of the files to Arquivo.pt, transcribe images and videos verbatim, and also use PDF as the most traditional format for archiving news. The issue of accessibility to content for people with special needs is fundamental in the preservation process. Presentation.
Finally, Daniel Gomes emphasised how much has been done in the last 17 years in the field of web preservation, to the point where we now have a functional service that everyone can use. As a testimony to those early days, we found a page from Diário Digital newspaper from November 2006.
Panel 3: Preserving the present and safeguarding the future
The third panel was moderated by Paula Meireles, Coordinator of the Archive, Documentation and Information service at the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and brought four other realities to the table.
Filipe Guimarães Silva, Executive Director of the Fundação Mário Soares e Maria Barroso, and António Coelho, Digital Reproduction Coordinator, delved into the technical issues related to digitisation, based on the case of the collection, which is also accessible on the Casa Comum portal. Quality control is the most important factor in obtaining a preservable digital version. You don’t always need expensive technology to get good results. It is essential to follow standards and ensure that quality metadata is generated. Presentation.
Fernanda Gonçalves, Director of Archives at the São João Local Health Unit, showed how the São João Digital Clinical Repository is transforming access to clinical files with advantages in terms of both speed and quality of information. The information management model at this huge institution poses immense challenges for preservation and continued access, as it involves creating interoperability between multiple systems. What’s more, this is sensitive data with different levels of access. This is where the archive comes in as an asset. The archive service must rise to the challenges of any organisation in order to serve all its ‘clients’. Presentation.
Augusto Ribeiro, head of the Documentation and Information Management Service at UPdigital, University of Porto, explained how the university collection is being preserved. From the treatment of paper documents to their digitisation and inclusion in the digital repository, it’s important to guarantee their robustness. This work has been progressive and systematic, i.e. it follows a plan where all the pieces fit together as the work is carried out. Presentation.
Pedro Penteado (DGLAB) presented the ‘Digital Preservation Guide’ project that is being developed in collaboration with the Asociación Latinoamericana de Archivos (ALA). This initiative will structure content on digital preservation in a pragmatic way. Soon, professionals will have a knowledge base to consult whenever they carry out digital preservation activities. Presentation.
Panel 4: Community space
The fourth panel, moderated by Paula Carvalho, from FCT’s Science and Technology Archive, included 9 short presentations submitted by the community. Below, we present the abstracts submitted by the authors:
Justiça do Futuro: + Digital – Alexandra Lourenço, Albertina Catrola, Alexandra Henriques, António Dias, Cristina Ferreira, Inês Nunes, Rute Ramos | SGMJ
It was shown the work that the Commission has been doing to identify archives, documentation centres and collections of all kinds with material about 25 April. There are public collections that are practically unknown, and others that are in private collections. Inventorying and publicising them is therefore the first step in promoting study and knowledge about 25 de Abrril.
Finally, Maria Inácia Rezola announced the award of the Honourable Mention ‘25 de Abril and Democracy’, together with a prize of 5,000 euros, in the Arquivo.pt Award 2025, to the best work on 25 April that uses Arquivo.pt.
Image gallery
Encontro Dia Mundial da Preservação Digital 2024 #WDPD2024
Credits: photos by Leonor Arrimar (FCT). Included are some images of mobile devices sent in by participants.
Arquivo.pt won the award in the category of “Best Digital Project of Central Public Administration”.
This category annually recognizes a project that has contributed “unequivocally to the development of the Central Public sector through digital means, as well as the Digital Economy in Portugal”.
The Head of Arquivo.pt Daniel Gomes, the FCCN Deputy General Coordinator Salomé Branco and the FCT vice-president Francisco Santos were present at the ceremony held on October 24 at the Técnico Innovation Center in Lisbon and received the award.
Arquivo.pt receives Award for Best Governmental service
Navegantes XXI Awards
The Navegantes XXI (Navigators XXI) Awards are an annual initiative by ACEPI – Digital Economy Association, created with the mission “To Promote and Develop the Digital Economy in Portugal”.
The competition rewards the best of the Digital Economy and Society in Portugal in its most diverse aspects. It currently comprises 20 categories that reward the most innovative and digital transformation Portuguese projects, ideas and institutions. Three prizes are also awarded for special categories outside the competition.
May 18, International Museum Day, was celebrated all over the country with free admission, guided tours, entertainment and exhibitions related to memory and heritage.
Arquivo.pt contributed with an exhibition of old web pages, entitled “Digital Memory through the Internet of the Past”, which was on display at one of the stands at the National Coach Museum in Lisbon.
The pages were selected to show different aspects of the Alentejo over time. From 2016, pages relating to the Heritales project were selected.
Heritales and Crowd-Recycling drew attention to the preservation of the Internet’s memory
Heritales is a project based in Évora that aims to study and disseminate heritage in all its manifestations. It is known for its main event created in 2016, HERITALES – International Heritage Film Festival.
Crowd-Recycling is a project focused on good practices for sustainability.
Heritales, Crowd-Recycling and Arquivo.pt carried out this action in collaboration with the aim of giving visibility to content published on the web over time. Preserving and giving access to digital content is fundamental to enhancing heritage.
Why an exhibition of old websites is a good idea
Making an exhibition of websites over time is relatively easy, all you have to do is come up with a theme, which can also be the history of an institution, and choose pages preserved on Arquivo.pt.
An exhibition of old websites is an original idea for the target audience. It often features texts and images that only existed on the web.
By drawing attention to the websites, we realize that many things were left unrecorded and this changes our view of the content we publish today. We start taking more care to save important pages, for example by taking action or saving them on the spot with SavePageNow.
Heritales, Crowd-Recycling and Arquivo.pt on International Museum Day at the National Coach Museum
World Internet Day was on May 17th
The day before International Museum Day was World Internet Day (May 17). The proximity of the two commemorations ties in with the theme of preserving memory.
Portugal connected to the Internet for the first time in 1991, with the FCCN project “RCCN IP Service”.
The initiatives were as follows: a journey through time, a special collection on the theme “Abril 25”, a presentation at the “50 years of April International Congress” and the inclusion of a special mention in the 2025 edition of the Arquivo.pt Award.
Memories of April 25 on the Internet exhibition
The exhibition Memories of April 25 on the Internet presents a selection of web pages about the celebrations of April 25 in various regions of the country, since the beginning of the web in the 1990s.
The criteria for choosing the pages for the exhibition were as follows:
Pages relating to the April 25 commemorations;
Pages found on Arquivo.pt on dates close to the anniversary each year;
Diversity to include different areas of the country;
Popular demonstrations and official ceremonies.
A historical memory without web archives is incomplete. The aim of this journey through time is to invite citizens to travel back in time, browsing through old web pages and reliving recent episodes in our life as a democracy.
The dataset contains a list of keywords put into a search engine in order to obtain results on the topic of “April 25”. The search considered names of people, places, political, social and cultural aspects, as well as words associated with the event.
The searches were carried out on March 22, 2024 using the Bing Search API, an automatic search service that returns results according to the relevance criteria of the Bing service itself and others configured by us.
A total of 12,650 unique web page addresses were obtained. It is hoped that the recording of these pages will be useful for the organizations that produced this content, for researchers who want to study our history and for citizens who cultivate a sense of memory and democracy.
Participation in the 50 years of April International Congress
João Gomes, Director of Advanced Services, FCCN-FCT presenting the Arquivo.pt Memorial service at the 50 years of April International Congress
On May 2, 2024, João Gomes, Director of Advanced Services at the FCCN Scientific Computing Unit of the Foundation for Science and Technology I.P., presented Arquivo.pt to the participants of the 50 years of April International Congress, as a distinctive service, open to citizens and useful for organizations.
Arquivo.pt is a web preservation service available to all citizens who want to search for old content published on the web.
Using Arquivo.pt contributes to a better understanding of our history. It also provides useful services for cybersecurity, such as the Arquivo.pt Memorial, which is able to maintain institutions’ old websites, preventing attacks and saving them resources.
Special mention for “April 25 and Democracy” at the Arquivo.pt Awards 2025
In 2025, as part of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of April 25, a special mention will be made of work on the theme “April 25 and Democracy”.
We therefore challenge researchers and interested citizens to create innovative works using Arquivo.pt.
If you have any questions about the Arquivo.pt Award, please contact us.
