FYI: Internet Archive Launches Wayback Machine

[Gerry Mckiernan]

To The Universe/

   This U-Gotta-Try

/Gerry McKiernan
WayBack Librarian
Iowa State University 
Ames IA 50011

gerrymck at iastate.edu 

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INTERNET ARCHIVE LAUNCHES WAYBACK MACHINE

Free Service Enables Users to Access Archived Versions of Web Sites Dating
from 1996

SAN FRANCISCO (October 24, 2001) 

The Internet Archive [ http://www.archive.org/ ], a comprehensive
library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form,
today launched the Wayback Machine, a free service allowing people to
access and use archived versions of past web pages. For the first time,
all members of the public will be able to search and view the Internet
Archive*s enormous collection of web sites, dating back to 1996 and
comprising over 10 billion web pages.

The service, which was unveiled tonight at a ceremony at the University of
California at Berkeley*s Bancroft Library, is available at
web.archive.org. To use the Wayback Machine, visitors simply type in a URL
in the provided search box, select a date, and then begin surfing on an
archived version of the web.

³In 1996, we created the Internet Archive because we felt it was critical
to preserve a permanent record of this historically significant new medium
for the public,² said Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle. ³To date,
the Archive has catalogued over ten billion web pages that might otherwise
have been lost, giving us both a record of the origins and evolution of
the Internet, as well as snapshots of our society as a whole around the
turn of the century. For our fifth anniversary, we are opening up the
Archive to the public by launching the Wayback Machine, so that everyone
can travel back in time and view the Internet as it was in the past
future.²

Since 1996, when the Internet Archive was founded in order to create a
permanent collection of digital material for the public, the Internet
Archive has been storing and recording web pages. Collaborating with
institutions including the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian
Institution, the Internet Archive*s comprehensive library of the Web's
digital past comprises 100 terabytes of data and is growing at a rate of
10 terabytes per month, eclipsing the amount of data contained in every
library in the world including the Library of Congress, and making it the
largest known database in existence.

³By keeping an historical record of what Web sites looked like and how
they evolved over time, the Internet Archive is an invaluable resource for
journalism educators, academic researchers and people who just want to see
how the media and our culture marked important historical events,² said
Paul Grabowicz, Director of the New Media Program and Assistant Dean at
Northgate UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. ³Now, thanks to the
Archive's new Wayback Machine, everyone has the opportunity to revisit,
study and enjoy these important 'first drafts of history'.²

About the Internet Archive The Internet Archive was founded in 1996 in
order to build a digital library and other cultural artifacts in digital
form, with the purpose of offering permanent and free access to
researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public. The Archive
holds a collection of archived web pages, dating from 1996 and comprising
100 terabytes. Since 1999, the Archive has expanded its collections to
include: a September 11 television and online catalog; an Election 2000
online library; archived movies from 1903-1973; and other documents.
Located in San Francisco, the Archive is a 501(c)(3) public nonprofit
whose benefactors include Alexa Internet, AT&T Research, Compaq, the
Kahle/Austin Foundation, Prelinger Archives, Quantum DLT, Xerox PARC, the
Library of Congress, and the National Science Foundation.

[http://www.archive.org/wayback/press_kit/press_release.html  ]

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