The “archivability” of a website is gaining traction as a major consideration for developers and designers who want to create everlasting and deliberate internet products. Alongside accessibility and site performance, archivability is another factor that the internet community and digital contributors should account for when publishing content on the web. According to the Stanford University Libraries, the term archivability is “the ease with which the content, structure, functionality, and front-end presentation(s) of a website can be preserved and later re-presented, using contemporary web archiving tools.” Even though my spellcheck is underlining archivability in red as a non-word, the concept of digital archivability is worth defining, understanding, and implementing.
Despite the call-to-arms from archivists and librarians to create sustainable sites, the current trend in web development to build applications in React (sites running primarily JavaScript with little HTML) appear to sidestep this concern. How does the prevalence of JavaScript affect the overall archivability of the web? Because many internet archivists and tools rely on HTML to store data, the rising dominance of React calls into question our current means of archiving. Should designers and developers be responsible for making decisions that account for archivability or is it someone else’s job (such as The Internet Archive or digital…
