Comparative Research On The Web Information Resources Long-term Preservation Projects Of China And U.S.A

In the 1990s, with the rapid development of the Internet and information technology, Web information resources increasing day by day, however, due to the characteristics of the web information resource, its rate of disappearance is very fast. In view of this, UNESCO formulated the“Guidelines for the preservation of digital heritage”in 2003. The document stated:digital heritage,“including digital products that converted from existing analogue resources, where resources are "born digital", there is no other format but the digital original". According to the definition, web information resources are an important component of digital cultural heritage, and should be saved. Recognizing this problem, many countries carried out the projects to preserve web information resources. Also, China carried out related projects, the most representative project is the WICP (Web Information Collection and Preservation), which is carried out by the National Library of China. However, because we began the work later, there are still many problems, such as:the communities do not pay enough attention to the work; the government and industry are lack of management and control in this field; relevant agencies are in dispersed state. These problems impede the development of the preservation of web information resource. Therefore, it’s a problem that how to solve the problems and promote the preservation of web information resource.Based on the current problems that we have met, the author surveyed the projects that carried out by other countries, and found that U.S.A is one of the countries that carried out the projects earlier and a lot of experience of their projects is noteworthy. Therefore, the author compared the web information resources long-term preservation projects of China and America from four respects: the basic content, the acquisition process, preservation process, access process. On the basis of analysis and comparison, exploring the features and advantages of American preservation projects and analyzing of the experience that we need to learn.