Archive-It 5.0

In January 2016, Archive-It released version 5.0 of our web application, the first full redesign and improvement of our entire web app since its introduction in 2006.

Archive-It 4.9 Archive-It 5.0



Redesigning the web application from the ground up gave us the opportunity to develop a new user interface, add many new features and functionality, and improve the app’s core features and workflows in response to Archive-It partners’ recommendations, experiences, and needs. The redesign, of both the front-end interface and underlying architecture and systems, allowed us to implement some of the most frequently requested and important enhancements. Highlights of the full release include:

Account view in the new Archive-It web application

Improved user interface: The centerpiece of the release is the application’s sleeker, modernized, graphical user interface, which simplifies the workflow of archiving web content, and which highlights essential information and features for managing collections.

Real-time data graph from a crawl in progress

Information architecture: The new web framework and real-time datastore underlying the user interface is more robust and features a new data model and API-based architecture that makes the application more modular and lightweight. This enables it to quickly connect partners to information about their web crawls, even those currently in progress, and will better enable the development of future features.

“Seed” site interface, showing the crawling history of a targeted website

Enhanced management and quality assurance tools: The new web application’s improved design and ability to manipulate and display complex data gives partners more control over the process of archiving and reviewing web content. Archive-It 5.0 allows partners to manage and explore information about their collections in a visual way, more specifically define what does and doesn’t get archived from each of their targeted websites, and review and take action on those archives in order to ensure their overall quality.

The new online Help Center

Partner support: To help partners take advantage of, and fully understand, all of the new and advanced features of Archive-It 5.0, the release of the new web application also includes a new online user support portal. The new “Help Center” link at the top of the web application interface provides access to the comprehensive user guide to all parts of the web archiving process, FAQs, our technical support system, and other resources that help partners manage their collections.

Archive-It partners can learn much more about these and the many other improvements that were made during the development of Archive-It 5.0 by reading the full release notes in the new Help Center. To see a demonstration of the 5.0 web application, partners can also watch this recorded webinar introducing and demonstrating the app’s new interface and features.

The enhancements don’t end here, though. The development process revealed more opportunities for improvement than could be included in this release of Archive-It 5.0, such as further collection management, display, and data downloading capabilities. The Archive-It team will share timelines for each of these features for Archive-It 5.1 and beyond. In the meantime, partners are encouraged to continue sharing their ideas and recommendations in Archive-It’s feature requests forum.