All,

I'm a long time lurker coming out of the shadows....I would add something
here, in addition to the valuable comments on issues of retention and
official copy.  A snapshot of a web site is good for many reasons, not the
least of which is to historically document your web site.  In answer to
your IT department's question "what are you trying to do" my partial
response would be "I want to preserve a snapshot in time of what our web
site looked like." How often should that occur is a bit subjective.   We do
it here every 4 months and additionally, when there are big changes, like
in whole design.  What I do here is e-mail our IT person quarterly, she
burns a CD, and I put it in the our archives.  When we started this
process, I did need to make it clear to IT that the reason I wanted it was
historical, not for the typical back-up thing that IT people think of.
Just wanted to throw my 2 cents worth in regarding the historical aspect of
a web site!

Thanks and now, back to lurking.
Nancy

Nancy Freeman, Records Manager/Archivist
National Wildlife Research Center
4101 LaPorte Ave.
Fort Collins,  CO  80521
(970) 266-6023
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                      Benay Berl
                      <BBerl@OLIVENHAIN        To:       [log in to unmask]
                      .COM>                    cc:
                      Sent by: Records         Subject:  Snapshot of website
                      Management
                      Program
                      <[log in to unmask]
                      UFL.EDU>


                      12/01/2004 09:41
                      AM
                      Please respond to
                      Records
                      Management
                      Program






We are in the process of updating our records retention schedule (a
yearly adventure.) I suggested that we add our website to the schedule.
This started a conversation about what to put in the retention column.
Hmmm. Of course "current" was suggested. Long boring and familiar story
followed.

Our website is hosted by a service provider (SBC.) The files are created
by a staff member here in our organization. She makes changes to the
files and sends them to the service provider, who then loads them.
Our IT department handles the contractual issues with the host.  I asked
IT if the host captures the site prior to making changes. IT gave me the
phone number of the service provider.

I called the service provider and was told that they back up their
system every night and write over the tape every 14 days. I asked if
they can provide me with a copy of the website prior to changes. They do
not provide this service and suggested that we do this at our end and
drop it on a CD.

I should mention that IT does a full backup of our servers every night.

Back to the IT department this morning who sent me this message:
"What is it you are trying to do? To make a backup onto CD every time we
make a change would be pretty time consuming. We make changes to the
copy of the site that we have here and then we move the local files
we/have changed to the SBC site You know our backup schedule, why isn't
that sufficient."

How would you answer this message

Benay Berl
Records Coordinator
Olivenhain Municipal Water District
Encinitas CA
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