The WebKurator.de Platform: Combined Regional and Topical Web Curation

2026-09-03

AI Summary

为解决网络内容系统性保存问题，本文提出WebKurator.de平台，采用结合地域与主题的双维度策展模型，并利用LLM技术进行分类和地址提取。

Abstract

The systematic curation of the Web remains a central challenge for national libraries and memory institutions that aim to preserve culturally and regionally relevant content. Existing directory-based approaches such as Curlie implement a predominantly topic-centric, one-dimensional hierarchy, where geographic aspects are intertwined with topical and linguistic categories. To address this limitation, we present WebKurator.de, a collaborative platform for combined regional and topical web curation, initially focused on the German web. WebKurator introduces a two-dimensional curation model that explicitly separates topical categorization and geographic annotation. The system integrates LLM-based topic classification and imprint-based address extraction with geocoding, and supports user suggestions together with moderated review. The platform is bootstrapped from the German Imprints Dataset, a large-scale collection of 5.54 million websites. Among them, 3.14 million contain imprint pages, for which we successfully extracted and geocoded postal addresses. Of these, 2.58 million (85.17%) are located in Germany and also have an assigned topic label. These websites form the initial foundation of WebKurator.de and can be continuously extended through user suggestions.

Problem

• Web Curation
• National Libraries
• Memory Institutions
• Topical Hierarchy
• Geographic Aspects

Innovation

• combined regional and topical curation
• two-dimensional curation model
• LLM-based topic classification
• imprint-based address extraction
• geocoding