I’ve written before (e.g. in May) about the importance of the Internet Archive, which I was fortunate enough to visit in its early days. It’s a hugely valuable resource for many reasons, not least in giving some protection against link rot through its ‘Wayback Machine‘.
What I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know until recently, or had forgotten, is that there is also a UK Web Archive at webarchive.org.uk . It’s a very nicely-done collaborative project of the UK Legal Deposit Libraries, and performs a similar task for UK-based websites.
It’s been going for 10 years now, which is a good span but not nearly as long as the Internet Archive, so if, say, you were feeling gloomy about the situation in the UK and needed to be cheered up, you could go and look at the old News of The World site and be grateful that it ceased to exist 12 years ago. For that, though, you would need to go to the Internet Archive.
The UKWA is a great initiative,and worth supporting. If you have a UK-based site which isn’t already indexed, let them know. It’s another good way to try and ensure it outlives you, and they try to update their copy at least annually.
And if you want to know more about the UK’s Legal Deposit Libraries which are behind the project, Tom Scott (of course) has a nice new video.
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So I followed the suggestion to see the AT&T film on how to use a rotary phone and….wait for it….the Internet Archive can’t find it!
Ha, yes – I spotted that! (For those wondering, this is a reference to an earlier post where I also mentioned the Internet Archive).
They had featured this particular video, and it’s no longer at the (slightly complicated) URL where it used to be 15 years ago!
However, it’s still on the archive and I was able to find it here, using two different methods. One was to use their search box and enter the name ‘How to use the dial phone’. And the other was to put the archive.org link I had originally used into their own link search engine! That told me that it had originally redirected to
/details/HowtoUse1927on their site, and so I was able to find it again! Not ideal, but it works!I’ve now updated the original post.
Thanks. I use IA and was surprised by the first result.
Your solution path brought back memories…In the early 2000s I used to teach college Composition students how to utilize advanced search techniques on various search engines (then including directories). Then the alternative engines dropped away and The ubiquitous Google engines started stripping out searching options.
Glad to see there’s someone else who enjoys digging holes, sometimes for the digging, sometimes for the dirt.
Does it make sense to have two archives? Wouldn’t the UK money be better spent contributing to the main global initiative?
I think that would be like trusting someone to manage your own backups for you…