The Internet Archive Part 1: The Beginnings of a Little Bit of Everything (Digital)

Libraries have always been about preserving materials for future generations. From the Library of Ashurbanipal, the first systematically collected library in the 7th century BC, to your very own Dayton Metro Library, Librarians have gathered items of various types in an effort to keep knowledge alive.

To a similar end, the folks at Internet Archive www.archive.org have been working to preserve Internet sites and other digital media since 1996. They are a non-profit organization in San Francisco, and their collections cover audio, video, digitized texts, and much more. Quite a bit of new information these days is being created first online (that is, without any paper copy that a traditional library would collect and preserve,) and archive.org is working to keep that type of information from being lost forever in bits and bytes. Also many cultural artifacts like pamphlets or informational movies are not being collected in their original forms; archive.org and its partners are converting those things to computer files. They are cooperating with various organizations like the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, so there are links that will take you to collections housed on other computers.

There is a lot on this site for researchers, but there is just as much for the casual browser or the Internet thrill-seeker with some time to kill. We say “Part 1” in the title above to let you know that future entries on the Internet Archive will highlight its various parts. For now, sit back in your most comfortable chair and browse their collections. There’s more there than you could ever look at or listen to in ten lifetimes. Happy Surfing!

-- Tim, Main Library