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   Dear Colleagues;

   I would like to call your attention to a grant opportunity designed  
to encourage and support new developments in the broad field of web  
archiving.  This program, made possible by a grant from the Andrew W.  
Mellon Foundation and administered by Columbia University  
Libraries/Information Services, will provide financial support for  
projects to develop tools and applications to improve the process of  
web archiving or the use of archived web content.  A fuller  
description is provided in the Call for Proposals (below and  
attached.)  

   If this grant is of interest, I would encourage you to submit a  
preliminary proposal prospectus according to the procedures described  
in the Call.  Please also assist us in getting the word out by  
redistributing this Call for Proposals to other potential applicants.   
Information about this program is also available on this web page:  
https://library.columbia.edu/bts/web_resources_collection/call_for_proposals.html[1].

   Regards,

   Bob

   Web Archiving Incentive Program
Call for Proposals

   1.     PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

Thanks to a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation,  
Columbia University Libraries / Information Services (CUL/IS) will  
administer a Web Archiving Incentive Program intended to support new  
developments in the broad domain of web archiving.  We now invite  
proposals from qualifying institutions for projects that improve,  
enhance or innovate in the areas of web harvesting and use. 

   a.     TYPES OF PROJECTS IN SCOPE

The Program welcomes projects that involve analyses, improvements and  
innovations in areas that include (but are not limited to):

   1.     Development of new tools for web harvesting, web archive  
curation and use       

   2.     Improvement/extension of existing web platforms in  
collaboration with publishers/developers to support archiving

   3.     Improvement/extension or innovative implementation of  
existing web archiving tools/services

   4.     Packaging/bundling of existing tools to assist creation, or  
use of web archives

   Please see the appendix at the end of this call for proposals for  
examples of projects in scope.

   A wide diversity of proposals within the projects in scope is being  
sought.  Projects must focus on automated tools and provide thorough  
documentation of expected behavior of the tools.  Preference will be  
given to projects that will modularly extend an existing tool, produce  
a fully functional tool, demo site or working prototype.  When  
appropriate the creation of a full technical specification will be  
considered a final deliverable (an accompanying product specification  
is desired but secondary).

   A set of sample data from Columbia University’s web archives will  
be made available for funded projects, but it is not required that the  
sample data set be used to complete the work funded.

   b.     TYPES OF PROJECTS NOT IN SCOPE

The current grant will not support proposals for educational or  
training programs, internships or residencies.

   c.     PROVIDING ACCESS TO GRANT PRODUCTS

All software developed must be fully documented and made available  
under one of the open-source software licenses approved by the Open  
Source Initiative (preferably a GNU General Public License) with code  
deposited in an open-source repository such as GitHub or SourceForge,  
or licensed Creative Commons (Attribution-NonCommercial), as  
applicable.  If building on existing open source code, the license  
already assigned to the code will be applied to additions.

   2.     AWARD INFORMATION

Awards amounts are expected to range from $20,000 to $25,000, but  
proposals requesting smaller or larger amounts will be considered.  
Allowable expenses under these awards include salary and fringe for  
project staff as well as travel. Indirect costs will not be assessed  
or covered.

   All work must be completed and final reports submitted by October  
30, 2014.  Earlier completion dates are encouraged.

   3.     ELIGIBILITY

Grants must be institutionally sponsored by a college, university or  
non-profit organization (501(c)3 or 501(c)4) in the United States of  
America, with final proposals submitted through the institution’s  
sponsored research process.  International applicants are eligible to  
apply only in conjunction with a qualified institution in the United  
States.  Some work under the award may be subcontracted to third  
parties.

   4.     APPLICATION AND SUBMISSION INFORMATION

   An initial one page prospectus is requested.  In this prospectus,  
please include: a brief description of the project and its intended  
outcomes and benefits, an overview of methodology and standards that  
will be employed, and a brief summary of the qualifications of the  
project staff.  This prospectus is due September 30, 2013.  At this  
stage, evidence of approval by the institution’s sponsored research  
(grants) office is not required; however, applicants should be  
prepared to obtain all necessary approvals should a full proposal be  
requested.

   If the project is approved for further consideration, a full  
application will be requested by October 30, 2013.  The full proposal  
will be due December 30, 2013 and should include the following:

   a.     Project description -- Abstract

   b.     Project description -- Full

   i.       Overview and significance of work proposed

   ii.      Background of applicant(s)

   iii.     Scope and duration for project

   iv.    Examples of related past work (if applicable)

   v.     Methodology and standards

   vi.    Work plan

   vii.   Staff

   viii.  Budget

   ix.    Institutional letter of endorsement

   x.     Appendices (bibliography, resumes, intellectual property  
agreement, complete list of participants, consultants & advisers)

   Application materials in each round must be submitted in a single  
.pdf file (please do not send multiple attachments or submit materials  
in other file formats). 

   Awards will be announced by February, 2014.  A mid-project progress  
report will be required and the deadline for completion of projects is  
October 30, 2014.

   5.     APPLICATION REVIEW CRITERIA

   Proposals will be evaluated by an Oversight Panel of individuals  
with expertise in web archiving.  Successful proposals will  
demonstrate the how the project is innovative, feasible and has the  
potential for wide benefit.  Preference will be given to tools that  
are generalizable such that they will useful to web archiving programs  
at multiple institutions.

   6.     HOW TO SUBMIT

   Applicants should submit the initial one-page prospectus as a pdf  
email attachment to [log in to unmask][2] no later  
than September 30, 2013. Detailed instructions for submitting full  
proposals will be sent to selected applicants no later than October  
30, 2013.  

   If you have any questions or concerns regarding this call for  
proposals, please contact the Web Archiving Project Librarian for this  
grant, Anna Perricci, at [log in to unmask][3].

   _APPENDIX _

   EXAMPLES OF TYPES OF PROJECTS IN SCOPE

   The Program welcomes projects that involve analyses, improvements  
and innovations in areas that include (but are not limited to):

   Development of new tools for web harvesting, web archive curation and use

   Examples:

   ?      Scoping crawls, analysis of website archivability           

   ?      Capturing web content difficult to harvest via traditional  
crawling (rich media, database-driven features, dynamically generated  
content, changing URIs)

   ?      Automated QA analysis of harvests

   ?      Automated metadata extraction/generation

   ?      Data mining of web archives

   ?      Data visualization in web archives

   ?      New APIs for analysis or discovery of web archives

   ?      Browser extensions for harvesting websites on demand  
                         

   Improvement/extension of existing web platforms in collaboration  
with publishers/developers to support archiving

   Examples:  

   ?      WordPress plugin for archiving

   ?      Drupal optimization for archiving                       

   ?      Solr 4 optimization for indexing contents of .warc files,  
improving full-text search relevance, result clustering,  
multi-language support

   ?      APIs (i.e. Twitter)

   ?      Browser configuration to improve navigation of archived  
websites (i.e. Chrome)

   ?      Promoting native compliance with Memento 

   ?      Integration of discovery services (such as widely adopted  
metasearch products)

   Improvement/extension or innovative implementation of existing web  
archiving tools/services

   Examples:

   ?      Memento

   ?      SiteStory

   ?      WAIL                         

   ?      WebCite

   ?      ArchiveReady

   Packaging/bundling of existing tools to assist creation, or use of  
web archives

   Examples:

   ?      Supplementing crawlers with headless browsers or modules for  
capturing special content, e.g. streaming media

   ?      Providing a suite of data mining and/or data visualization options

   A wide diversity of proposals within the projects in scope is being  
sought.  Projects must focus on automated tools and provide thorough  
documentation of expected behavior of the tools.  Preference will be  
given to projects that will modularly extend an existing tool, produce  
a fully functional tool, demo site or working prototype.  When  
appropriate the creation of a full technical specification will be  
considered a final deliverable (an accompanying product specification  
is desired but secondary).
-- 
Robert Wolven
AUL for Bibliographic Services and Collection Development
Columbia University Libraries/Information Services
513 Butler Library
535 W. 114th St.
New York, NY 10027


Links:
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[1]  
https://library.columbia.edu/bts/web_resources_collection/call_for_proposals.html
[2] mailto:[log in to unmask]
[3] mailto:[log in to unmask]