Editing Admin:ColemanARC Hosting

ColemanARC hosted files are research records which have been copied from their original online location and saved to local files that are accessible on various pages.

== Importance of Locally-Hosted Files ==

While the internet is an exceptionally powerful research tool, it suffers from at least one glaring flaw: information may be moved or deleted from its location at any time.  Websites shut down, websites restructure and move content to a different URL, certain content may be deleted altogether and become permanently inaccessible.  In some cases, this is of little consequence.  For example, even if the web address for a certain state park homepage is changed, its reasonable to believe that the page will always be accessible somewhere on a website operated by state government.  However, certain types of information hosted by private parties is always potentially subject to deletion without warning.  Occasionally, these resources may be of particular importance and it is worthwhile to protect this information into perpetuity.

In those cases, I create a digital copy of the resource and store it on the ColemanARC server.  Typically, the digital copy is in PDF format.  ColemanARC cannot directly display PDF files, however the PDF documents are listed and available for download on applicable articles.

== Advantages of Locally-Hosted Resources ==

Locally hosted resources are invaluable in that they are preserved with a greater degree of certainty than if their fate was left up to their creator.  All locally-hosted resources on ColemanARC are backed up both on the internet and on a hard disk.  The likelihood of these resources randomly vanishing is therefore substantially reduced.

== Headline text ==

Although the creation of locally-hosted files ensures that certain resources are preserved despite the fate of the website on which they were originally discovered, there are potentially some problems introduced by doing so.

'''Disconnection for Source'''

By creating a local resource from online material, that resource is effectively disconnected from its source.  Thus, if I create a locally-hosted resource in 2010, for instance, and the original resource is updated in 2011, then my locally-hosted resource will not reflect that update.  A locally-hosted resource is strictly a one-time, static snapshot of pertinent resource information.

'''Possibility of Copyright Infringement'''

Under certain interpretations of copyright law, it is possible that the creation of local copies of certain material may be considered unlawful.  In order to minimize such infringement, ColemanARC is not hosted as a widely-accessible public resource.  ColemanARC is blocked from being indexed on all search engines; only those that already know the URL of ColemanARC will know how to find it online.  Therefore, none of the locally-hosted files are being distributed to the general public.