Finding an Archived Website

In capturing websites, the Bentley Historical Library employs Archive-It's web crawling software.  Before the submission of "seeds", for research purposes, or for inclusion in a finding aid, you may want to determine if a site has been captured. Finding captured sites can be tricky. Below are a few tips for finding sites that have already been captured by the Bentley Historical Library.

Bentley Historical Library's Archive-It Page

The most effective and always updated place to go first is the Bentley's Archive-It landing page (https://archive-it.org/organizations/934). This page is updated with the latest seeds as soon as they are saved.

The landing page will be organized by collection. The Bentley Historical Library currently has 9 collections in Archive-It:

• 1. mBlog (University of Michigan) Web Archives [Inactive]

  2. Michigan Historical Collections

  3. University of Michigan Administration Web Collection

  4. University of Michigan Alumni and Fans Web Collection

  5. University of Michigan Athletics Web Collection

  6. University of Michigan Health System Web Collection

  7. University of Michigan News & Events Web Collection

  8. University of Michigan Schools, Colleges, Research, Centers, and Institutes Web Collection

  9. University of Michigan Student Organizations Web Collection

The fastest and easiest way to search for a site is to copy and paste the full URL in the search bar under the "University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library" header image. Click  the "Search" button when you are ready and the results page will load. The Archive-It site can be slow, so please be patient.

You can also use the search bar to look for keywords, text within the archived web pages, or site titles. However, this kind of search will have varying results. At one point, it stopped becoming common practice to include metadata information, such as descriptions and subjects, to the seeds. The Bentley is working slowly to reincorporate this information to facilitate searching from the Archive-It landing page. As we work to update that information, there may be seeds with incomplete information.

ArchivesSpace Resource Records

All Archive-It seeds are tracked in ArchivesSpace. The ArchivesSpace resource record is the official place of record for all of our metadata and other information regarding a seed. The ArchivesSpace records are updated regularly, but there is a delay between when the seed is saved in Archive-It, and the record is added to ArchivesSpace. 

8 of the 9 collections have their own top level resource record:

• 1. mBlog (University of Michigan) Web Archives [Inactive]

  2. Michigan Historical Collections

  3. University of Michigan Administration Web Collection

  4. University of Michigan Alumni and Fans Web Collection

  5. University of Michigan Athletics Web Collection

  6. University of Michigan Health System Web Collection

  7. University of Michigan News & Events Web Collection

  8. University of Michigan Schools, Colleges, Research, Centers, and Institutes Web Collection

  9. University of Michigan Student Organizations Web Collection

If you have access to the Bentley Historical Library's ArchivesSpace instance, you can look through each web archive collection to find the seed you are looking for. It is easier and faster to go directly to the collection's resource page to find a site than to use the ArchivesSpace search bar. 

Archive-It Backend Site

Any user with an Archive-It account can search for seeds from the partner interface. 

The Home and Collections tabs will list the collections the Bentley Historical Library has. The Bentley Historical Library currently has 9 collections in Archive-It:

• 1. mBlog (University of Michigan) Web Archives [Inactive]

  2. Michigan Historical Collections

  3. University of Michigan Administration Web Collection

  4. University of Michigan Alumni and Fans Web Collection

  5. University of Michigan Athletics Web Collection

  6. University of Michigan Health System Web Collection

  7. University of Michigan News & Events Web Collection

  8. University of Michigan Schools, Colleges, Research, Centers, and Institutes Web Collection

  9. University of Michigan Student Organizations Web Collection

To see if a seed is currently or has been captured, you must navigate to a collection's page by clicking the collection name's link on either the Home or Collections pages. 

Once you have loaded a collection's page, you can click the Seeds tab to generate a list of seeds within that collection. There will be a small search bar where you can paste in the URL you are looking for.  As soon as you start typing into the search bar Archive-It will filter through the list of seeds. 

Ask the Archivist for Digital Curation

If you've tried all of the methods that are available to you and still need help, just ask the Archivist for Digital Curation.