Web archiving issues and challenges in State Government of Sarawak (Malaysia): Do they really need their website to be archived?

Abstract

Sarawak State Web Archive (SSWA) is Sarawak State Library’s (Pustaka) initiative. Website contents of the Sarawak State Civil Service (SSCS) entities obtained from World Wide Web (WWW), are archived for the purpose of preserving non-library resources, as part of the Legal Deposit requirements of Sarawak State Library Ordinance, 1999. Web preservation is considered as a common practice at international level, whereas in Malaysia this is still at a minimal level. Since 2009, Pustaka has been harvesting 132 websites of Sarawak State Government departments and agencies. However, Pustaka faced challenges in performing web archiving works. This paper focuses on the general issues and challenges in preserving corporate information heritage to make it available for future reference.