Imagine a world without the Internet Archive
Have you searched for a blog post you read years ago, only to find out the site is gone? Do you have an old home page you never backed up but want to re-create? Hopefully its in the Internet Archive.
I am researching the community wireless movement and simultaneously learning the challenges of digital research. Mailing list archives, websites, blog postings that capture the events of the period are practically non-existent. Without the Internet Archive I don’t know where to begin. I can call some old friends, “Can I rummage through your old web server hard drives? Do you still have them?” I worry information a researcher needs 100 years from now might be gone for ever. Luckily the Internet Archive exists and captures much but not all of it.
Even with the Internet Archive researching is hard. For example, searching is rudimentary on the site, much of it’s data does not populate google search results. You need to know what you are looking for or have a breadcrumb trail to follow. That being said, its an amazing resource and the place of last resort for much of the data created over the past 24 years.
Support the Internet Archive
The Internet Archive accepts donations and volunteers.
I’d wish I found about the Archive sooner. I’ve been non-stop searching on it for old BBS’s & muds. I’ve been searching for my old website I had manage to put up back in the 90’s and not knowing where the actual url I had because I used the cjb.net service to link to it. To my surprise as I was browsing someone’s website they had a link to my site and I know it was mine, but the site wasn’t archived. Still I found other relics of myself on various sites which is cool. I find myself saving pages to Archive that I feel are important not to lose. I still have all my hard drives from the very first computer I’ve had to dozen’s I still have. Ah memories I will have fun looking through those.