Screenshot of the front cover of the digital zine "DIY web archiving", which has large-sized text stating: "Things disappear from the internet. Care about stuff on the web? You need to act to archive it. Anyone can do it—this zine shows you how."
Screenshot of a page of the zine "DIY web archiving", titled "Why not let someone else archive it?" and decorated with the meme of 2 Spider-men pointing at each other, labeled "someone who can DIY web archive" and "also someone who can DIY web archive". The page's text says: "Why do DIY web archiving at all, rather then let other services or people handle things? Especially when there are options like the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine that you can just send URLs you want saved, not think further about it, and feel reasonably confident that they'll go make a copy and then you can go retrieve that copy later.
For federal government data, there's a group that's doing end-of-term archiving where anyone now can submit a URL and then they'll go crawl that as part of their end of term web archiving crawl.
It's important that people are doing this! But it's risky for us to rely on any one, or 2 or even 3 services or groups to capture and store things you care about (e.g. the Internet Archive went temporarily offline in 2024 due to a cyber attack ©). If you care about it, you should take steps to ensure that it continues to exist."
Screenshot of a page of the zine "DIY web archiving", titled "Anyone can do this!". The page's text says: "Downloading a copy yourself and storing it someplace that you control is really the best way to do it. It does take work and care to do. This stuff doesn't just magically happen. But at the same time, it also doesn't require being a super technical person.
As part of SUCHO (Saving Ukranian Cultural Heritage Online initiative), we taught everyone from literal kindergartners, to retirees unfamiliar with computing, how to do web archiving. Your kids, your parents can do this. This is a way to actively contribute to protecting the things that matter to you.
Given the state of the world right now, it's worth considering what kinds of websites can be reached with a slow internet connection, & non-digital methods for copying and distributing things that you care about (like the paper version of this zine!). Things people can leave lying around for others to find, hand out —that don't require engaging with online social media platforms, or even having reliable and unmonitored internet. (If designing for these needs intrigue you, search the web for "digital humanities minimal computing", aka "mincomp""
Screenshot of a page of the zine "DIY web archiving", titled "Considerations for safety and privacy". The page's text says: "Considerations for safety & privacy:
Who could be harmed if your data is accessed, crawled, ingested into a database, Al training set, or other tool?
• How might data that preserves work by or connects at-risk groups (e.g. trans folks) be used to track, target those groups if accessed by the wrong people?
• Even for data already theoretically findable online, gathering may amplify it to more folks than were previously aware of it, or make targeting folks easier.
It's important to archive these things! But think about where/how you store them, who you share them with, and if there are ways to reduce risk.
Personal safety options for when archiving:
• Use a VPN, if you can. Some free options may be great, but some might be paid by their uses of your data or less secure.
• Using dedicated logins for web archiving can prevent your personal account from getting limited or even banned and can help provide more anonymity
• Work for a government-funded group (including public universities)? Anyone can make a FOIA request accessing Slack chats, email, Zoom transcripts, etc. that aren't stay protected by a limited set of student-privacy and HR rules. Do non-work DIY web archiving firmly outside work resources if you can."
Work through the free "DIY Web Archiving" zine w/a group of friends, coworkers, students to learn & save at-risk data, fan art, whatever's on the web that matters to you! By @quinnanya.me @akijas.bsky.social @ilya.webrecorder.net @bitarchivist.net & me: zinebakery.com/homemade-zin... Example pages:
