Archiving the Deadly and Proud website

World Wide Web Day is celebrated on the 1st of August every year to acknowledge the impact the World Wide Web has had on the world. This year, 2024, is the World Wide Web’s 35th anniversary, Tim Berners-Lee having been credited with the invention in 1989. 

Did you know that Victorian Government agencies are required to maintain records of website activity in accordance with our standards? Advice for managing website records can be found under the recordkeeping for government section of our website.

When a Victorian Government website is no longer operational, ie. after a short-term project or awareness campaign has ended, agencies must ensure that any information of ongoing value, not being carried forward elsewhere, is saved prior to the website’s decommissioning.  

Website transfer project

A recent website that was captured and transferred to our collection for posterity is the Deadly and Proud Campaign website and associated videos. The Deadly and Proud Campaign was a 2021 collaboration between the Department of Premier and Cabinet, and the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria that aimed to build a collective understanding among Victorians of the importance of the process of Treaty. The website featured an interactive map sharing stories of Aboriginal Victorians and a timeline up to the establishment of the Yoorook Justice Commission. 

The website records have been saved in a format called Web ARChive. This format will ensure preservation into the future – however, it means that if you want to see the website today, you will need to download the file and then load it into a web-archive viewer (the web browser replayweb.page is one option that we demonstrate below). Why was Web ARChive chosen as the file format? Well, it allows a user to see the website as it was originally presented, which is particularly important for very dynamic and interactive websites such as this one. 

Viewing the Deadly and Proud website

To view a 2022 capture of the website, go to this Deadly and Proud Campaign Website record series page (VPRS 19310). 

Click on the record item: Deadly & Proud Campaign Website Full Website Capture – 12/09/2022.
Now you will come to the yellow Record page. Click the Content tab to see the warc file. 

Click the file to download it.
Once you’ve downloaded the file, open up another web browser and type in the URL: replayweb.page

Under the blue header, click the Choose File… button on the left. Navigate to your recent downloads and click on the warc file. Now click on the green Load button. It should start loading, and you will see this:

Once it’s loaded, a list of URLs will appear. Click on the links to enter the Deadly and Proud website. 

Note: if you receive any error messages from any of the links, try accessing the main Deadly and Proud page first (the 10th link displayed) and navigate through the website from there. You are now viewing the website as it was displayed in 2022.  

Viewing the videos

You can view campaign videos available via Deadly and Proud while in the replayweb viewer, OR you can watch the videos on their own by downloading the mp4 files directly from our catalogue and watching on your computer. These videos record the stories of individuals such as Aunty Edna and Aunty Muriel who speak about their connection to Country.

Explore these records below:

And a happy World Wide Web Day to all who celebrate it!