The following posting was requested via email from this graduate student. If you have time to help, please check out her survey (link below).

I'm a graduate student in Library and Information Science at Simmons College. I'm doing a research project with Professor Terry Plum, and I'm hoping that you will be willing to answer some questions for my project. I'm interested in the long-term storage and archival of news information, and how the processes differ for a newspaper and its corresponding web site.

In recent years, news websites have become de facto public information utilities. Some news websites may have evolved similarly to print news resources, with long-term information preservation policies similar to that of any newspaper. Other news websites may have evolved in the more dynamic Internet model, in which information is updated as necessary without permanent storage of the various incarnations of a site.

For my research project, I'm studying the information preservation and archival policies of some sites which have corresponding print versions. I'm interested in the preservation and archival policies of both the Web and print versions of each news organization with respect to general long-term information storage: who is responsible for policy and process, what are the process details, what are the relationships (if any) between the policies of the Web and print news organizations.

I'd be very grateful if you be willing to take a few minutes to fill out the survey I've created. I sent this e-mail to you because I believe you to be responsible for either the print or online archive of your site. If I'm wrong, would you be willing to forward this e-mail to the appropriate member of your staff, or to let me know that person's
contact information?

The address for my online survey is:

http://web.simmons.edu/~kapland/survey.html

Again, thanks so much for any time you can give me!

Sincerely,

Deborah Kaplan
Graduate Student, Simmons College Graduate School of Library and
Information Science