An introduction to the important work of digital archivists:
Much like the family member that collects, organizes, and identifies old family photos to preserve one’s heritage, digital archivists seek to do the same for all mankind.
Just copy and paste.
Dear soon-to-be-former user…
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A love letter to the Internet Archive.
The Long Now blog is featuring the bet between myself and Matt on URL longevity. Just being mentioned on that site gives me a warm glow.
Jason’s rip-roaring presentation from Defcon last year.
Now this is some prioritisation I can admire:
I’m going to build valuable, reliable, sustainable web services that will last forever.
A thoughtful—and beautifully illustrated—piece by Geri on memory and digital preservation, prompted by the shut-down of Gowalla.
The video of my talk from Webstock, all about wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff like networks and memory.
The video of my presentation on digital preservation at last year’s Build conference.
Our communication methods have improved over time, from stone tablets, papyrus, and vellum through to the printing press and the World Wide Web. But while the web has democratised publishing, allowing anyone to share ideas with a global audience, it doesn’t appear to be the best medium for preserving our cultural resources: websites and documents disappear down the digital memory hole every day. This presentation will look at the scale of the problem and propose methods for tackling our collective data loss.
Burying physical copies of dead websites in a Croatian cave.
Colly’s thoughts on digital preservation are written in a lighthearted tongue-in-cheek way but at least he’s thinking about it. That alone gives me comfort.
A beautiful reminder that by publishing on the web, we are all historians.
Every color you choose and line of code you write is a reflection of you; not just as a human being in this world, but as a human being in this time and place in human history. Inside each project is a record of the styles and fashions you value, the technological advancements being made in the industry, the tone of your voice, and even the social and economic trends around you.
This evolution of Tom Taylor’s microprinter looks like it’s going to be absolutely wonderful (and packed full of personality). Watch this space.
In a single post, Russell Davies manages to rehabilitate the term “post digital.” And he paints a vivid picture of where our “Geocities of things” is heading.
Reminiscences of the BBSs of yesteryear that could in time be applied to the social networking sites of today.
I’m going to try to make it along to this event in London next month.
A worrying report on the state of digital preservation and the web, specifically in the UK. Welcome to the memory hole.
A superb post by David that ties together multiple strands of personal digital preservation through homesteading instead of sharecropping.
Stewart Brand wrote this twelve years ago: it’s more relevant than ever in today’s cloud-worshipping climate.
I’d like to think that it’s ironic that I’m linking to The Wayback Machine because the original URL for this essay is dead. But it isn’t ironic, it’s horrific.
Amber documents her attempt to turn physical objects imbued with meaning into digital artefacts.
Here’s one to add to Instapaper or Readability to savour at your leisure: Aaron Straup Cope’s talk at Museums and the Web 2010:
This paper examines the act of association, the art of framing and the participatory nature of robots in creating artifacts and story-telling in projects like Flickr Galleries, the API-based Suggestify project (which provides the ability to suggest locations for other people’s photos) and the increasing number of bespoke (and often paper-based) curatorial productions.
September in Brighton is going to be ker-razy! Here’s a nice responsive holding page listing just some of the events that will be going on …dConstruct, Maker Faire, Flash On The Beach and more.
Digital preservation in the art world.
Luke’s notes from my talk about long-term thinking and online preservation at An Event Apart in Boston.
How the Mormon Church are storing and preserving genealogical data inside a mountain.
The editor of New Scientist writes about deletionists and preservationists while adding his own personal poignant perspective.
A blog devoted to sifting through the gems in the Geocities torrent. This is digital archeology.
The threat to Google Videos shows businesses are not suitable cultural custodians — they can’t be held accountable to the public.
Magazine creators share their experiences of going digital.
Andy hammers home the benefit of a long-term format like HTML compared to the brittle, fleeting shininess of an ephemeral platform-specific app.
A detailed look at how French archivists go about preserving websites.
If you speak Flemish, you might enjoy this article based on a chat I had with a Belgium journalist.
If you don’t speak Flemish, well, just move along.
Everything is worth preserving and protecting.
I answered a few questions right after giving my talk at the Phare conference in Ghent.
This is my prediction. If you think it’s wrong, challenge it. We shall then partake in a wager.
I wish I had a teacher like David when I was in school.
URLs, permalinks, archives … preservation. It all matters so very much.
This is the stuff James Bond stories are made of. Except in this case, the fortress exists to store data rather than criminal masterminds.
On 18 May 2010, the Planets (Preservation and Long-term Access through Networked Services) Project deposited a time capsule in the vaults of datacenter, Swiss Fort Knox, in Saanen, Switzerland. It contained the decoding information for five digital file formats on media ranging from paper, microfilm and floppy discs to CDs, DVDs and USB sticks.
This consortium of institutions and universities came together “to provide practical solutions and expertise in digital preservation.”
PLANETS stands for Preservation and Long-term Access through Networked Services.
The fascinating story of the BBC Domesday Project and its subsequent fate.
The purpose of the CAMiLEON project was to demonstrate the value of emulation in preserving not only the data stored in obsolete systems but the behaviour of the systems themselves - in this case one of the very first interactive multi-media systems. The aim was to reproduce the original user experience as accurately as possible, and the CAMiLEON team argued that the slight faults in images as displayed from the analogue discs were a part of that experience, and should not be cleaned up as Andy proposed to do. Our aim was different - we wanted to preserve the data with the highest quality available consistent with longevity.
Brilliant; just brilliant. Connor O’Brien remains skeptical about the abstract permanence of “the cloud.” The observations are sharp and the tone is spot-on.
If your only photo album is Facebook, ask yourself: since when did a gratis web service ever demonstrate giving a flying fuck about holding onto the past?
The BBC’s decision to actively delete old content (rather than simply allowing it to take up some space on a server) really gets my blood boiling.
The BBC asked the public to contribute their memories of World War Two to a website between June 2003 and January 2006…” and five years later some suit decided to bin them.
Let’s make the Bletchley Park data machine-readable so we can start mining the stories they contain (like Old Weather).
Bletchley Park need help to catalogue and create a proper archive of these decrypts.
I want in!
Aaron Swartz gets technical about online digital preservation.
Jeffrey points out another point of failure in our online storage: the willingness of site owners to sell their product (and your data) to a big company for a quick payout.
Mandy writes about digital preservation:
The technological means to produce an archive are not beyond our skills; sadly, right now at least, the will to do so is insufficient.
Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe — a digital preservation initiative based at Stanford.
An accurately-downbeat look at digital preservation.
A viciously accurate assessment of Yahoo’s scorched earth policy towards our online collective culture:
All I can say, looking back, is that when history takes a look at the lives of Jerry Yang and David Filo, this is what it will probably say: Two graduate students, intrigued by a growing wealth of material on the Internet, built a huge fucking lobster trap, absorbed as much of human history and creativity as they could, and destroyed all of it.
An oldie but a goodie. This is why we have standards.
A fantastic talk by Craig Mod on publishing, from this year's Do Lectures. I wish that the audio was available for huffduffing.
Lucy Inglis, curator of Georgian London, on the role she and other bloggers play.
Yes! Yes! Yes! An excellent fisking of that ridiculous New York Times article that confused problems in the present with data longevity.
Dan Gilmore, reporting from a conference on digital preservation. I should pay attention to this
This is my kind of event. Where does your data go when you die?
This is wonderful: sad, beautiful, and wonderful ...it's what I've been trying so hard to clumsily articulate. Read it. And smile. And weep.
A free PDF of the inside story of George Lucas, his intensely private company, and their work to revolutionize filmmaking. Discover the birth of Pixar, digital video editing, videogame avatars, THX sound, and a host of other icons of the media age.
The UX Brighton website is sporting a new lick of paint and looking rather lovely.
Lomokev is teaching photography in Brighton. Learn from the best.
With heavy heart, Nick announces the end of Digital Web magazine. It will be missed.
Geek girls of Brighton: don't miss Natalie's CSS talk in The Eagle on March 4th. Nat is the best front-end developer I know.
The blog of the preservation officer at the University of California.
Organisers of BarCamps — and other geek gatherings — take note: Campaign Monitor will provide sponsorship in the shape of pizza and drink.
Brighton has a new co-working space right 'round the corner from the Clearleft office: The Skiff.
WiFi hotspots in Brighton (including passwords where required) courtesy of Josh.
Philip Ball (author of the excellent Critical Mass) is coming to Brighton to speak at the Café Scientifique on the third Thursday of November. Excellent!
Trying to find the perfect geek venue for meetups, coworking, networking and boozing in Brighton. I love the smell of scenius in the morning.
The BBC were at dConstruct. This podcast episode includes interviews with Steven Johnson, Aleks and the the Dopplr Matts.
Brian and Josh are organising a Long Bet style gathering for the day before dConstruct. To participate, choose a timescale and enter your prediction. What an excellent way to kick-start some discussion.
There will be an evening games in the foyer of the Clearleft office building on Thursday, August 21st.
Ben has written a superb article outlining the hows and whys of distributed social networks with hCard and XFN, finishing with an inspiring call to arms.
A wonderful source of data on user behaviour and perceived skill levels online.
The Olinda has arrived. I love the physical API.
Excellent explanation of DRM by Mark Pilgrim, prompted by MSN Music's gunshot to the head.
Want tickets to dConstruct? If you're a girl geek, here's your chance.
Here's the logo for BarCamp Brighton, taking place the day after dConstruct. Looking good.
This has become a regular event here in Brighton. Developers get up and talk about cheaply-made apps. I want to try and get a slot sometime.
John answers some questions about microformats.
A really nice article by Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain detailing the process behind a site design.
A great article by John Allsopp that serves as an excellent introduction to microformats.
It sounds like Robert Rodriguez is capable of bringing Frank Miller's graphic novels to life.
This is the plain vanilla look.
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