A Review of the Collection Development Policies of National Web Archives of Some Countries: Presenting a Checklist Proposed for National Web Archives

The present research aims to review the policies of collection development for national web archives of some selected countries like Australia, Sweden, France, New Zealand and Great Britain, in order to prepare a checklist proposed for collection development of national web archives. Methodology / Approach: First, the library research method was used to review the concepts used in texts and resources. The next step was to review the websites of national web archives of the chosen countries and to correspond with respective officials through which the policies of collection development for web resources in the mentioned archives were collected. Based on the content analysis of each policy, a coherent and comprehensive check list was developed. The studied web archives differ in the number of criteria applied as follows: Pandora Web Archive (Australia): 101 criteria, Kulturarw3 Web Archive (Sweden): 17 criteria, New Zealand Web Archive: 21 criteria, National Library of France Web Archive: 15 criteria, UK Web Archive: 19 criteria. The collection development criteria compiled through reviewing the collection development policies applied by national web archives of the chosen countries was tabulated in a checklist against 8 factors: general factors of selecting online publications, types of publications, title, prioritizing multiple versions, legal issues, exceptions, general principles of selection, and examining the whole range. This checklist specifies 32 criteria and 107 indicators for national web archives.