This paper describes the work of the JISC-funded PoWR (Preservation Of Web Resources) project which is developing a handbook on best practices and advice aimed at UK higher and further educational institutions for the preservation of Web sites and Web resources. The paper summarises the challenges institutions face in preserving Web resources, describes the workshops organized by the project in order to identify the challenges and identify appropriate best practices, and outlines areas in which further work is required.

The preservation of Web resources is a topic that is of interest to many involved in digital curation issues. It presents many interesting technical challenges in terms of capture and access, and organisational and resourceoriented problems, some of which are shared with other aspects of digital preservation and some of which are unique to Web resources. How does one select material? When are we trying to preserve information and when is it the experience, behaviour or appearance that is paramount? How straightforward is it to move Web resources between curatorial environments? Most everyone knows that information persistence on the Web is a fragile thing. And, as Rusbridge has observed [1] even those who care about information persistence don’t necessarily do a good job of it on their Web sites. This, despite the fact that good advice about URI persistence has been available for some time [2]. URI persistence is just one small (albeit important) part of the problem that illustrates the wider issues that surround Web preservation in an institutional context.

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