https://blog.archive.org/2025/09/10/carta/
"Art historians, critics, curators, and humanities scholars rely on the records
of artists, galleries, museums, and arts organizations to understand and
contextualize contemporary artistic practice. Yet, much of the art-related
materials that were once published in print form are now available primarily or
solely on the web and are ephemeral by nature. In response to this challenge,
more than 40 art libraries, museums, and organizations from across the United
States and Canada have partnered with Internet Archive to establish a
collective approach to the preservation of web-based art content at scale: The
Collaborative ART Archive (CARTA).
Since 2018, members of CARTA have worked together to identify, preserve, and
provide access to at-risk online content related to the arts. The program
relies on the expertise of those working in art libraries and museums by asking
them to nominate sites for inclusion in the archive. Internet Archive web
archivists then work to capture the sites and make the preserved content
available in the CARTA collections portal.
Sumitra Duncan, Head of the Web Archiving Program at the New York Art Resources
Consortium/The Frick Collection, was one of the founding program members and
currently serves as the CARTA Advisory Board Chair. In speaking about the
program, she reflected “It’s been tremendous to see what we’ve all been able to
achieve together with CARTA in just a few years of working collaboratively,
with over 40 member organizations having contributed. This work isn’t as easily
accomplished alone (especially for those who are part of a small museum staff,
face shrinking budgets for subscriptions, or are the solo archivist/librarian
at their organization), so CARTA has allowed many art library colleagues to
join the effort and share their expertise for collection development to ensure
that these ephemeral materials are being preserved before disappearing from the
live web.”"
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
