1. Description
As part of its mission to provide enduring access to McMaster’s
scholarly works, the McMaster University Libraries (“Libraries”) offers
a limited web archiving service (herein referred to as “The Service”)
for select members of the McMaster University community to archive their
scholarly websites, where resources allow, and specific conditions are
met.
These terms of service (ToS) outline the relationship between the
Libraries and an eligible individual (the “Requester”) requesting a site
to be archived (the “website of interest”). Requesters are expected to
review and understand the ToS outlined in this document.
The service consists of related but distinct support activities
provided by the Libraries:
Generating a web archive file (in warc
format) for the website of interest on a one-time-only basis (e.g.,
as a research project ends and/or before a website is decommissioned).
The completed file is transferred to the Requester, who is free to
distribute, store, and preserve the file, as desired (including
depositing in McMaster’s MacSphere institutional repository, if
appropriate). Neither the archived website nor an accessible version of
it will be hosted via this service.
In select cases and under certain conditions (see Section 3), the
Libraries will provide a solution for the public to view the archived
version of the website of interest on a public facing website (the
“Archived Website Viewer”). The Archived Website Viewer will provide
only a viewable window—the archived website file must be hosted on and
served up by another publicly-available web service (e.g., another
website, MacSphere, etc.) . It is the sole responsibility of the
Requester to provide a hosting solution.
2. Eligibility
The service is available to researchers and research administrators
at McMaster University, which may include faculty members, librarians,
students, postdoctoral fellows and staff). Local community groups
interested in using the service require a McMaster sponsor in one of the
roles defined above. Websites must relate to McMaster’s scholarly
mission.
3. Limitations and exclusions
The Libraries will make a best effort to provide the Requester with
an archived version of the website of interest. The request may not be
fulfilled due to a variety of technical and resource-related
constraints, including:
Websites that use technologies or incorporate elements that are
incompatible with the web archive generation software used by the
service.
Websites that are complex and require more than the standard
amount (approximately 1 hour) of web archiving software configuration to
return a reasonable output.
Websites that are prohibitively large.
Websites on platforms that do not permit archive
crawling.
Failure of the Requester to provide appropriate information,
access, and validation of outputs in a timely manner.
In cases where the Requester wishes to present a viewable version of
their archived website on the Archived Website Viewer, the Libraries
will assess its suitability. The public-facing Archived Website
Viewer does not host web archive files: Requesters are
responsible for hosting their web archive file at a publicly available
web location. The archive viewer will be removed if the hosted web
archive file is no longer available. The Libraries reserve the right to
decline requests in cases where logistical, technical, or capacity
challenges are presented, or where the content of the viewable website
is deemed inappropriate or not accessible.
Inappropriate content and
use
Although the Libraries do not screen content presented on the
Archived Website Viewer, it reserves the right to remove, at any time,
any sites with content it considers to violate this MoU or the terms of
any other campus user agreements that may govern use of the campus
networks, or that it deems in violation of McMaster University policies
or local, provincial, or federal law. Should MUL receive reports
regarding perceived inappropriate content, the site’s Site Owner will be
contacted, and further mitigation options (including complete removal)
will be reviewed.
4. Responsibilities
The Requester is responsible
for
Initiating the request and providing the Libraries with all
necessary information to archive the website,
All content within the website that is to be archived,
Responding to inquiries from the Libraries in a timely manner,
and
Reviewing the archived version of the website to ensure that
content and interface elements are captured to an acceptable level;
communicating any issues to the Libraries.
If a viewable version is desired, identify a publicly available
hosting location for the web archive file.
If a viewable version is created, serve as a point of contact for
any inquiries about the website received by the Libraries.
The Libraries are responsible
for
An initial evaluation of the website to be archived, which may
include a consultation,
Generating a web archive file for the desired website;
troubleshooting technical issues with the web archiving
technology,
Sharing a draft version of the archived website to the Requester
for review,
Corresponding with the Requester to review any issues with the
archived website,
Performing minor configuration changes and re-archiving websites
based upon feedback from Requester review,
Sharing with the Requester the final web archive file, which will
be available for download for 30 days, and
If a viewable version is desired and permitted, create a landing
page and viewer for it on the Libraries’ public-facing website.
5. Viewer website availability
The viewer website is hosted on MacBlog; as such, support for outages
and time to response and restoration is dictated by its Terms of
Service.
The viewer website is not a preservation system. The Libraries will
contribute best efforts to sustain the website but reserves the right to
discontinue it at any time as resources and policies dictate.
6. About this document
This document has been adapted from Terms of Service documents from
McMaster University (September 2021-February 2025), University of
Toronto Mississauga Library (August 2019) and York University Libraries
(June 2018), the University of Guelph’s Research & Scholarship
Service Level Agreement (no date), New York University’s Terms of Web
Hosting Pilot Service document, December 2017, University of Ottawa’s
Service document, June 2018.
Last updated April 2025 by McMaster University Libraries.
