Week VII

With regards to my last post, where I presented the concept of abandonedware (software that is still under copyright, but can no longer be bought and so is therefore offered on the web for free), I'd like to provide a link to the Wayback Archive Internet Archive. The Archive provides an archive of sorts of the internet- it takes samples of web pages periodically and stores them in its system. You can search and see pages as they existed from years ago.

"The Internet Archive Wayback Machine is a service that allows people to visit archived versions of Web sites. Visitors to the Wayback Machine can type in a URL, select a date range, and then begin surfing on an archived version of the Web. Imagine surfing circa 1999 and looking at all the Y2K hype, or revisiting an older version of your favorite Web site. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine can make all of this possible."

The About section of the Archive explains some of the different aspects and uses of a concept of an archival system of the internet:

"Libraries exist to preserve society's cultural artifacts and to provide access to them. If libraries are to continue to foster education and scholarship in this era of digital technology, it's essential for them to extend those functions into the digital world."

"Internet libraries can change the content of the Internet from ephemera to enduring artifacts of our political and cultural lives."

"Without paper libraries, it would be hard to exercise our "right to remember" our political history or hold government accountable. With much of the public's business now moving from paper to digital media, Internet libraries are certain to become essential in maintaining that right. Imagine, for instance, how news coverage of an election campaign might suffer if journalists had only limited access to previous statements that candidates had made in the media."

"Historians, sociologists, and journalists could use Internet libraries to hold up a mirror to society. For example, they might ask when different ethnic groups or special interests or certain businesses became a presence on the Internet. "

I think this site is very interesting to those involved in many different aspects of communications research, from history to new technology. I also think, from a teacher's perspective, that it makes a very good point to students that while the web is ephemeral in a sense, there is more permanence to it than many people of the current generation generally give credit to.