Susanne Belovari, Archivist for Faculty Papers, has received the 2018 Hugh A. Taylor Award from Archivaria, the scholarly journal of the Association of Canadian Archivists, for her article “Historians and Web Archives.” Archivaria is one of only 2 peer-reviewed archival journals globally given an A+ for publication of quality research by the Australian Research Council in 2010. The full citation for Belovari’s award reads:
“The World Wide Web is often seen as the paradigmatic form of late twentieth century digital culture. Susanne Belovari’s fresh and timely article demonstrates that despite its importance, archivists have not yet figured out how to preserve the Web for future use. The article brings both archival and historical perspectives to the debate about Web archiving: perspectives that, as the author shows, are much needed but have often been missing both from discussion of this topic and from practical initiatives in the Web archiving field. Through an imaginative and playful thought experiment that takes the perspective of a historian in 2050 trying to understand the Web in 2015, Belovari offers a stark vision of the archival future, demonstrating the dangerous limitations of most current approaches to Web preservation. ”
The Hugh A. Taylor Prize was established in 2006 to honour the doyen of Canadian archival thinkers whose wide range of scholarly publications sparked the Canadian archival imagination. The prize is awarded annually to the author of the Archivaria article that presents new ideas or refreshing syntheses in the most imaginative way, especially by exploring the implications of concepts or trends from other disciplines for archival thinking and activity, and by extending the boundaries of archival theory in new directions.
Portions of this post have been adapted from an Archivaria Press Release