Check Out Our Old Website!
So, what do you do as a librarian when all kinds of information moves from the print world to the digital one? One instinct may be to kill the printer making a bazillion copies of webpages to squirrel away in a file someplace a little safer than an anonymous server out in the ether. Most of us, however, are happy that a few technology companies have come together to create the Internet Archive (IA) to store and organize all kinds of digital information from the web.
Established in 1996 as a non-profit group, the IA has a very thorough mission statement and set of goals that are geared toward preserving a static copy of a publishing form that can change by the minute, so that researchers and the general public can access this valuable information even after it disappears from a website. You can even sign up for a free account and bookmark your favorite material on the site.
But even if you aren't doing any serious research, this is a great site to explore and one you may go to and suddenly realize you've spent a lot of time digging through all the links. The main idea behind the IA is to have a cultural repository, as the internet is both a research and a cultural tool. Because it is designed to capture the internet culture, IA is broken down into collections that coincide with their "offline" versions. There are separate collections for images, text, audio, music, and moving pictures. Patrons can watch videos, download free eBooks from libraries around the world, or just browse through countless images and news stories. In addition to the traditional information sources, the site also has collections of computer-era data, such as a software collection and the very popular Wayback Machine, which lets you search for a website so you can see how it has change through the years.
So, why not check out MCL's old website and then take a look around the rest of the internet's online museum. You're sure to find something that may make you chuckle, learn something new or, at the least, entertain you for a few hours.
Established in 1996 as a non-profit group, the IA has a very thorough mission statement and set of goals that are geared toward preserving a static copy of a publishing form that can change by the minute, so that researchers and the general public can access this valuable information even after it disappears from a website. You can even sign up for a free account and bookmark your favorite material on the site.But even if you aren't doing any serious research, this is a great site to explore and one you may go to and suddenly realize you've spent a lot of time digging through all the links. The main idea behind the IA is to have a cultural repository, as the internet is both a research and a cultural tool. Because it is designed to capture the internet culture, IA is broken down into collections that coincide with their "offline" versions. There are separate collections for images, text, audio, music, and moving pictures. Patrons can watch videos, download free eBooks from libraries around the world, or just browse through countless images and news stories. In addition to the traditional information sources, the site also has collections of computer-era data, such as a software collection and the very popular Wayback Machine, which lets you search for a website so you can see how it has change through the years.
So, why not check out MCL's old website and then take a look around the rest of the internet's online museum. You're sure to find something that may make you chuckle, learn something new or, at the least, entertain you for a few hours.- Laura N.
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