PROMISE: PReserving Online Multiple Information, toward a Belgian StratEgy

Although the .be domain was introduced in June 1988, the Belgian web is currently not systematically archived. Currently around 1.6 million domains are registered by DNS Belgium. Without a Belgian web archive, the content of these websites will not be preserved for future generations and a significant portion of Belgian history will be lost forever. The PROMISE (PReserving Online Multiple Information: towards a Belgian StratEgy) project, funded by the Belgian Science Policy Office, will help to prevent this from happening.

The aims of the PROMISE project are: 

• to identify current best practices in web-archiving and apply them to the Belgian context

• pilot Belgian web-archiving

• pilot access (and use) of the pilot Belgian web archive for scientific research 

• make recommendations for a sustainable web-archiving service for Belgium   

PROMISE is a first step towards implementing a long-term web archiving strategy for Belgium.