The document discusses providing uniform access to raw mementos from web archives. Currently, most web archives augment mementos with custom banners and rewritten links, which does not represent the resource's original captured state. The document proposes two options to request raw mementos using a Prefer header in HTTP requests sent either to the timegate or directly to the memento. This would provide a standard way for clients like research systems and replay tools to retrieve the unmodified captured content from archives.

1. Uniform Access to Raw Mementos
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Uniform Access to Raw Mementos
Herbert Van de Sompel1, Michael L. Nelson2, Lyudmila Balakireva1,
Martin Klein1, Shawn M. Jones1, Harihar Shankar1
{@hvdsomp, @phonedude_mln, N/A, @mart1nkle1n,
@shawnmjones, @hariharshankar}
1Research Library
Los Alamos National Laboratory
2Computer Science Department
Old Dominion University

2. Uniform Access to Raw Mementos
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• Most web archives augment their Mementos with
• Custom banners
• Rewritten links
Status Quo

3. Uniform Access to Raw Mementos
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4. Uniform Access to Raw Mementos
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 Such Mementos do not represent the resource’s state at
the time of capture.
 “Rawness” is needed for
 Research evaluating original content
 Replay systems e.g., Memento Reconstruct
 Approaches to guarantee veracity of archived content
Problem

5. Uniform Access to Raw Mementos
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• Clients have to be aware of archive-specific implementation
• URI patterns used to convey levels of rawness:
• http://somearchive.org/{datetime}im_/URI-R
• http://somearchive.org/{datetime}id_/URI-R
• Supported by OpenWayback and pywb instances
Current Workaround

6. Uniform Access to Raw Mementos
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7. Uniform Access to Raw Mementos
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Option #1
Request header sent against TimeGate
Proposal: Use of Prefer Header in HTTP Request

8. Uniform Access to Raw Mementos
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Option #2
Request header sent against Memento
Proposal: Use of Prefer Header in HTTP Request