We're In Danger of Losing Our Memories

Hugh Pickens writes "The chief executive of the British Library, Lynne Brindley, says that our cultural heritage is at risk as the Internet evolves and technologies become obsolete, and that historians and citizens face a 'black hole' in the knowledge base of the 21st century unless urgent action is taken to preserve websites and other digital records. For example, when Barack Obama was inaugurated as US president last week, all traces of George W. Bush disappeared from the White House website. There were more than 150 websites relating to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney that vanished instantly at the end of the games and are now stored only by the National Library of Australia. 'If websites continue to disappear in the same way as those on President Bush and the Sydney Olympics... the memory of the nation disappears too,' says Brindley. The library plans to create a comprehensive archive of material from the 8M .uk domain websites, and also is organizing a collecting and archiving project for the London 2012 Olympics. 'The task of capturing our online intellectual heritage and preserving it for the long term falls, quite rightly, to the same libraries and archives that have over centuries systematically collected books, periodicals, newspapers, and recordings...'" Over the years we've discussed various aspects of this archiving problem.

Comments

FP

[Tubal-Cain]

First po

Wait, what were we talking abo

First Post!

Re:FP

[dangitman]

Don't worry. After this civilization is destroyed, the only thing of value that will remain intact is Simpsons DVDs. A new civilization will be rebuilt from these remnants, and we'll populate an entire planet for each episode. On some of those planets, Smithers will be black.

Re:FP

[genner]

I bet you also forgot that Smithers was black.

So was Michael Jackson at some point, no one cares.

Re:FP

[professional_troll]

There was a girl I knew

Haha, your funny! I like you!

Re:FP

[rlp]

I fully support the disappearance of George W Bush anyway.

Never heard of him.

"All traces of George W. Bush disappeared"

[Caboosian]

and nothing of value was lost.

Re:"All traces of George W. Bush disappeared"

[Kamokazi]

Um....personally I want every detail of the Bush administration recorded in history books... ....under a section titled, "Never, ever, do this again."

Re:"All traces of George W. Bush disappeared"

[ColdWetDog]

You do recall the dot-com crash in 2000, right? Bush wasn't in office until 2001.a

It's still his fault. We KNEW he would be elected. That alone crashed the dot-com bubble.

Re:"All traces of George W. Bush disappeared"

[bagboy]

Statements like yours really shows YOUR ignorance. Whether you are Repub/Demo Bush/Obama makes no difference. The office of President alone cannot control the economy of the Federal Governement. And certainly has no control over where you choose to bank, etc.... Civics 101 - There's Congress, the Senate and the Executive branch - and oh yeah, the Judicial who judges those items that overstep their bounds. And guess what? There are both dems/repubs in all of the above.

Re:"All traces of George W. Bush disappeared"

[Ethanol-fueled]

Ah, well. Since the PMRC is associated with the name "Gore", I can't say that I'm entirely disappointed. Bush Jr.'s election and re-election weren't about being right, they were about telling the American idiots(and the idiots worldwide who emulate American idiots) to go wild. And what American dosen't like to go wild, even if it means sucking dicks to pay for their overvalued mortgage in a recession economy!

Gore and Kerry's campaigns were "mumble mumble this, mumble mumble that." Americans who want change didn't have a real voice or character(since Howard Dean, anyway) until Obama. Hillary would've also won, but she's too cool with her New York Jew constituency and we have to have a prez who's more low-key about that kinda shit.

People who mod me down: suck my dick.

Re:"All traces of George W. Bush disappeared"

[Anonymous Coward]

This is my favorite slashdot post of all time that doesn't involve sentient ATMs or greased up Yoda Dolls.

Re:"All traces of George W. Bush disappeared"

[Gizzmonic]

World War II: Rosevelt (D). (more dead americans than any war in history)

Ahem...the Civil War is on line 2, it wants to know why you never call anymore. Did you forget it?

Re:"All traces of George W. Bush disappeared"

[Anonymous Coward]

Me likes bush. Me like anything that gives foliage to the punani area.

Re:"All traces of George W. Bush disappeared"

[Neeperando]

The office of President alone cannot control the economy

That's crap! There is exactly one person to blame for all our current troubles, and that person is conveniently a member of the party you are opposed to. Wake up, man!

interesting idea

[corbettw]

I wholeheartedly agree that there should be some mechanism for archiving millions, if not billions, of web pages. Someone should get right on that.

Re:interesting idea

[superdave80]

Yeah, but who's archiving archive.org???

Re:interesting idea

[mathx314]

I'm not sure, should that be "Quis archiviet ipsos archivides?"

Re:Just do it.

[bluefoxlucid]

Lexus Nexus' entire existence is based on this shit too, but includes print media etc. You have no idea what they're capable of; they can take a name and an event and tell you if another person with the same name at another event (no pictures, no other linkage) is the same person, their data analysis algorithms make really good associations on analog information.

They say they never forget, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Yeah, but who's archiving archive.org???

The turtles, of course. It's turtles all the way down.

Re:They say they never forget, but...

[laejoh]

archive.org is written in LOGO?

Re:who needs archive.org for the white house?

[Anonymous Coward]

So where's the archived version of Washington's webpage?

Re:Just do it.

[Shakrai]

Archive.org may not be willing to archive important sites (such as pr0n), and it only has a single mirror.

Don't worry I'm working on archiving all that porn locally. Eventually I'll combine every single file into one giant torrent and upload at least 99.9% of it before dropping offline ;)

Re:who needs archive.org for the white house?

[Anonymous Coward]

So where's the archived version of Washington's webpage?

The archival parchments were destroyed when the Canadians burned the White House. Not to mention the flappy-headed bastards killed Kenny too.

Re:Like the Copyright Black Hole?

[Anonymous Coward]

And, nothing of value was lost.

Re:Bush White House Site Preserved in Full

[DrEasy]

Good! Between this and the Monty Python archives now on YouTube, we should have our fill of free comedy for years to come.

Re:Just do it.

[clambake]

Apparently I was dead.

Fucking zombies....

White House website

[MoxFulder]

... when Barack Obama was inaugurated as US president last week, all traces of George W. Bush disappeared from the White House website.

Ah, hmm... we're in danger of forgetting George W. Bush?

I can't quite figure out the downside.