[LINK] Internet Archival

[Kim Holburn]

Have you searched the wayback machine?

I worry that we've already lost much of the written online material  
produced in the last few decades.  I think we've already lost much of  
early TV.  Recently the BBC had lost a number of early episodes of Dr  
Who and managed to get copies from people who had taped them (possibly  
illegally).  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_missing_episodes

Even if we had a perfect archive of everything online it would  
probably not be legally usable because of copyright restrictions.


On 2009/Sep/28, at 10:05 AM, Roger Clarke wrote:

> A mini case study in Internet archival.
>
> A year or so ago, I hot-linked from my family history pages to an
> obituary on a Sussex newspaper's web-site.  It was a Jan 2008 entry.
> Unusually, I failed to put a mirror on my own site or even back it up
> on my disk.
>
> I had reason to click on it this morning, and it was dead.
>
> The webmistress replied (helpfully, and at 08:45 Monday, her time):
>
>> Unfortunately I've had to clear out a lot of old artwork and  
>> documents
> from our server as space was at a premium. However, as you have the  
> date
> of the public notice you could contact Eastbourne Library. They  
> might be
> able to look up the newspaper for you to locate it and send you a  
> pdf of
> the page it appeared on.
>>
>> You may find these links useful:
>> http://www.eastsussex.gov.uk/libraries/find/eastbourne/
>> http://www.eastsussex.gov.uk/libraries/reference/download.htm
>> http://www.eastsussex.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/8294EE2F-BB90-420C-91A6-6854208C3737/0/PeriodicalslistSept09.pdf
>
> Silly me.
>
> 1.  Publication archives are a public cost, not a private one
> 2.  Disks cost money
> 3.  Maintaining old directory structures every time a new broom
>     comes along and re-designs the site, costs even more
> 4.  Years into the born-digital era, public archival continues to be
>     by means of hard-copy, not machine-readable copy
> 5.  The debate probably hasn't even reached the point of discussing
>     whether open-content archival formats need to be specified
>
>
> -- 
> Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
>
> Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611  
> AUSTRALIA
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> mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/
>
> Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of  
> NSW
> Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National  
> University
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-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
Ph: +39 06 855 4294  M: +39 3494957443
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