CAUSEWAY (Collaborative Architecture, Urbanism and Sustainability Web Archive) / Chris Sala

The Collaborative Architecture, Urbanism and Sustainability Web Archive (CAUSEWAY) is a pilot project to archive websites devoted to the related topics of architecture, urban fabric, community development activism, public space and sustainability. Made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, CAUSEWAY is being curated by art and architecture librarians at Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, and Yale universities, MIT, and the universities of Chicago and Pennsylvania (collectively known as the Ivies Plus Art and Architecture Group) and operates under the auspices of Columbia University Libraries and Information Services.

The overarching goal of this project is to preserve (and document the evolution over time of) the selected websites in a secure digital archive to guarantee the continuing availability of these important but potentially ephemeral resources for researchers and scholars.

Participating librarians are choosing websites that fit into the themes of CAUSEWAY: Urban Fabric (e.g. historic preservation, urban renewal, urban preservation), Public Space (e.g. parklands, community gardens), or Community Activism (e.g. historic preservation initiatives, associations).  Each librarian is making nominations focused on the geographic region in which her or his institution is located. Examples include websites for the Historic Chicago Bungalow Association; Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance; Newark Riverfront Revival; and Preserve Rhode Island.

Archived websites will remain freely accessible to the public. Websites included in CAUSEWAY will be viewable by date of capture in the Internet Archive.

For more information please attend the How the Web was Won: Collaborative Approaches to Web Archiving session in Ft. Worth. Held Saturday March 21 11am-12:30pm, Anna Perricci, Web Archiving Project Librarian, Columbia University Libraries, Columbia University will discuss establishing and growing a multi-institutional web archiving collaboration for CAUSEWAY.