At the Web Archive, Scott has transitioned into the role of “free-range archivist and software program curator,” where he contributes to the preservation of digital information. Established in 1996 by web pioneer Brewster Kahle, the non-profit organization aims to safeguard and store data that would otherwise be lost or forgotten.
Throughout the past two decades, the Internet Archive has accumulated an extensive digital repository, comprising not only its own web scraps but also the entirety of GeoCities’ online presence. This institution doesn’t merely preserve digital items alone; instead, it boasts a vast collection of digitized books that have been meticulously scanned and salvaged from potential loss. Since its inception, the Internet Archive has amassed a vast repository of information, exceeding 145 petabytes in size, alongside over 95 million publicly accessible digital files comprising films, images, and textual content. The system has successfully minimized the loss of approximately 500,000 MTV webpage entries.
The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine enables users to travel back in time and view snapshots of websites as they appeared on any specific date, boasting a vast collection of over 800 billion archived web pages and capturing an additional 650 million daily. This innovative device gathers supplementary data and streams TV stations globally, also storing TikTok videos and YouTube clips. The archived data is stored across various knowledge facilities owned by the Web Archive.
It’s a Sisyphean job. According to Jack Cushman, director at Harvard’s Library Innovation Lab, society is generating an unprecedented amount of new content that requires a significant increase in deleting issues compared to previous years, as he facilitates knowledge-sharing between libraries and technologists. “We must prioritize what’s worth preserving and eliminate what’s redundant,” he states. How can we ascertain this?
MIKE MCQUADE
Archivists are constantly faced with making decisions of this sort. As social media platforms continue to evolve, certain content on TikTok stands out for its cultural significance, historical importance, or sheer entertainment value. With that in mind, here are some types of TikToks that we should consider saving for posterity: TikTok challenges, viral dance crazes, educational tutorials, and iconic moments from world events.
Niels Brügger, a web researcher at Aarhus University in Denmark, cautions against expending excessive effort contemplating what future historians might find captivating about our legacies. “We can’t worry about what historians might examine in 30 years because we’re unaware of the significance of our actions.” “So we should avoid trying to predict and artificially constrain the types of questions that future historians might reasonably ask.”
According to Brügger, it’s crucial to store as much information as possible for future analysis and decision-making. As a historian, he remarks, “I’d unhesitatingly opt for: Acquire everything, only then will historians figure out what they’ll do with it.”
According to Jefferson Bailey, a developer at the Internet Archive, websites with content prone to being mislaid are likely to be prioritized for preservation on the Web Archive. “Materials that are ephemeral, in danger, or have yet to be digitized—and are therefore more easily destroyed because they exist only in analog or print form—receive priority treatment,” he explains.
