Accessing web archives from different perspectives with potential synergies

Abstract

Abstract. Web archives constitute a valuable source for researchers from many disciplines. However, their sheer size, the typically broad scope and their temporal dimension make them difficult to work with. We have identified three approaches to access and explore Web archives from different perspectives: user-, data-and graph-centric. In this paper we present related works on these three views as well as discuss their relations and potential synergies. Finally, we propose a generic analysis schema that outlines a systematic way to study Web archives by approaching them from different zoom levels corresponding to the three presented views.

The Past Web

“…In this chapter, we discussed methods aimed at the creation of event-centric collections from web archives. One important consideration when selecting a specific approach for collection creation is the purpose of the collection from the user perspective, where we differentiate among the user-centric, data-centric and graph-centric views proposed by Holzmann and Risse (Holzmann and Risse, 2017). This view determines the parameters of the creation method and the characteristics of the selected pages, in particular concerning their interlinking and relevant context in the archived web graph.…”

“…Like Kanhabua and Nørvåg (Kanhabua and Nørvåg, 2011), Gossen et al assume that the relevance of documents decreases rapidly as the distance from the event increases and therefore define a temporal relevance function based on the exponential decay function (Gossen et al, 2020). The document time point can be estimated using the document focus time discussed in (Jatowt et al, 2013).…”

“…Another aspect of collection creation is the user perspective on collection usage. Holzmann and Risse identified three views: user-centric, data-centric and graphcentric (Holzmann and Risse, 2017). In the user-centric view, users access the archived pages by specifying a URI and time, or by using full-text search.…”

“…The user perspective identified by Holzmann and Risse (Holzmann and Risse, 2017) can provide an essential basis for the collection-creation strategy. For example, a special kind of collection that follows the user-centric view is the storytelling proposed by .…”