MARITI ME HISTORY ON THE INTERNET
The Internet Archive: Finding Lost Things on the Web by Peter McCracken ally ch an ge from o n e mom ent to the next. So me sites won't show up a t all. Also , it m ay take as long as six m o nth s o r a year between the time w h en a site is 'viewed ' by the W ayback M achine and when that version is p os ted online. In addition to th e W ayback M achine, the Internet A rI've m aintained online for a do zen years sud- --~"'"'"=~==~~~ chive offers a collection of over 2 00 ,000 freelyaccessible digitized books in its Text Archive d en ly removed all m y content. U sing the In(http://www.archive.org/det ails/text s; it's also t ernet Archive's "W ayback Machine," which easily accessed from th e archive.org home p age). I'll d escribe below, I was a ble to recover the The collection primarily includes books out of informatio n I h ad lost, and I will, eventually, copy righ t, so o n e m ay not fi n d a lo t of c urrent repost it on a site I control, rather than a site sch olarship, but it can b e fun to view some m a naged by som eone else. works h ere-esp ecially images o f unique I also recently used th e Wayback M achine editi o ns o f famous w orks. to locate the d efun c t web site of a potential The Moving Imag es collection landlord. A search o n Google returned ( http:// www . archi ve .org/de tail s / inform a tio n tha t identified th e site, b u t " movies) contains old film clips from the Preclicking on the link or typing in th e linger Archives, including n ew s reels from San URL rep eatedly returned a "site not foun d' Fran cisco's 1934 gen eral strik e, the explosion o f error. U sing the W ayback M achin e, I could th e Hindenburg, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and find wha t his w eb site looked like several years ago oth er m ajo r events caught on fi lm . There is also a collecand could th us fi g ure o ut how this potential la ndlord tion of very short dr ive-in movie ad s, d esign ed to get fol ks h ad presented himself in the p ast. The Interne t Archive (http://www.arch ive.org) is a h un gry for item s sold a t th e concessions stand. Other p a rts of th e collection con tain old software (incollection of m any tools, includin g the W ayback Machine. Go to http: / /www.arch ive.org, th e n type in a URL, such cluding old vid eo games!), live concert recordings and other as http:/ /www. unc.ed u , an d th e Wayback M ach in e w ill audio co ntent, a n d a variety of o p en educatio nal resources . show yo u w hat the University of N o rth Carolina's w eb page The Inte rnet Archive is run by a small gro u p o f indiv iduals looked like back in 1997, or in 2000. The Wayback M a- in San Fran cisco as a non-profit o rgani zation. Ir's an inte rchine is impressive in that it contains more than eig h ty-fi ve esting example of what can b e d o n e to preserve historical billion p ages, but it does have a number of limita tions. It content an d promo te free access to informa tio n onlin e. Suggestions for other sites wo rth m entioning are welcome works by taking a reg ular sn apsh ot of a site, p erhap s as often as o n ce a d ay in some cases. That o bviously doesn't w o rk at shipindex@yahoo.com. See http://www.shipindex.org for a w ell for sites su ch as Amazon, YouTube, CNN, C raigs List, compilation of over 100 ,000 ship names fro m indexes to dozens and many of th e largest and m ost popular sites, w hich li ter- of books and jo urnals. .!,
"\.V,7hile writing the p revious column about W eb 2 .0 and W user-generated content (Sea H istory 119), I tho ught a good balancing column would discuss ways of finding sites that no longer exist. The relevan ce of th is idea becam e clear to m e a few w eeks later when the host for web sites
*J.P. U RAN KER WOODCARVER *
Historic, antique U.S. Coast Survey maps ~ from the 1800s /" Ori ginal lithog raphs, m ost A m eric an sea ports and shores. Reprint s, t oo. Unique fram ed,
grea t gifts. Cata log, $ 1 .00. Speci fy area.
Nautical Gifts • Model Ships Glassware • Bells • Hourglasses Clothing • Jewelry
Sbips Locke1· www.shipslocker.com Buffalo, NY shipslocker@shipslocker.com 1-800-962-7072 Corpo-vat"0V~Av~ ~ e-t'\t""'w-Y\I t'hW cul- Cl¥td;
veceiN0
1 0% ~
20
SEA HISTORY 120, AUTUMN 2007