This book treats the micro-archivation of websites, i.e. archiving by researchers, students or others without special technical knowledge who wish to save a website for further study using a standard computer.

The phenomenon is discussed from the standpoint that Internet research must be able to stabilise and save the object of its analysis. However, the Internet is endowed with certain fundamental media-specific dynamics that make stabilisation difficult. Based on an account and discussion of these dynamics (linked as they are to sender, text and recipient) the following double conclusion is reached.

Firstly, unlike other well-known media, the Internet does not simply exist in a form suited to being archived, but rather is first formed as an object of study in the very process of archivation. This form differs depending on who does the archiving, when, and for what purpose. Secondly, this means that there is an element of subjective creation in the archived material, so that methodical deliberations are necessary — in other words, the answers to why and how the archived material has been created.

These conclusions form the starting point for the last section of the book, which, based on comprehensive tests of archiving software, discusses in depth the elements that can be included in an archiving strategy.