The project shows the presence of the candidates on the Internet in the last local elections, with more than 5.000 digital resources

The web of the Padicat project (Digital Heritage of Catalonia), supported by the Biblioteca de Catalunya (National Library of Catalonia), has added to its collection a wide digital compilation on the last local elections, which took place on May 27th, 2007.

From April 17th to June 27th, 5.073 different editions from 594 web pages of political parties, 48 city councils, personal blogs and webs of 278 candidates, 130 digital media, and others, were collected. Speaking in terms of information storage, it means a volume of more than 450 GB and 13 million files.

The project allows users to access those resources that are still available on the net, but also to retrieve historic information from webs that are no longer availables, or those whose contents have been modified. Therefore, from the Padicat website it is possible to access to a set of diverse information and to monitor, from different points of view, the evolution of the elections on the internet.

The analysis of the data that the Biblioteca de Catalunya has carried out, provides the understanding of the presence and evolution of the local political candidates, through the analysis of the collected web pages selection.

The Biblioteca de Catalunya initiated the Padicat project in June 2005, to collect and preserve the entire cultural, scientific and general output of Catalonia in digital format. The project has the technological collaboration of the Centre de Supercomputació de Catalunya (CESCA) and has a budget of 766.000 euros. In the last months, the project joined the International Internet Preservation Consortium, a group of National Libraries that are compiling their own Web archives.

Since the creation of PADICAT, the Biblioteca de Catalunya has reached collaboration agreements with more than 275 institutions to make the historic versions of their websites accessible in a permanent way through the Padicat web. There are several public administrations, city councils, companies, universities, professional associations, mass media and cultural entities, among others, collaborating with the Padicat project.