Tuesday, September 11, 2007

The MINERVA September 11th Web Archive


Trying to remember what happened on September 11th, 2001?

Here's a link to the US Library of Congress MINERVA September 11th Web Archive, which has catalogued thousands of websites from that day, and the months following, from around the world:
The Library of Congress, in partnership with the Internet Archive, WebArchivist.org and the Pew Internet & American Life Project, has created a collection of digital materials known as the September 11 Web Archive.

The September 11 Web Archive preserves the web expressions of individuals, groups, the press and institutions in the United States and from around the world in the aftermath of the attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001.

The Web Archive is important because it contributes to the historical record, capturing information that could otherwise be lost. With the growing role of the Web as an influential medium, records of historic events could be considered incomplete without materials that were "born digital" and never printed on paper.

The September 11 Web Archive consists of over 30,000 selected Web sites archived from September 11, 2001 through December 1, 2001.

Approximately 2,300 Web sites were identified for further processing and were cataloged using MODS (Metadata Object Description Schema), an XML schema for a bibliographic element set which enables the creation of original resource description records.

The collection uses the Wayback Machine interface, a display designed to display Web sites captured over time, which was pioneered by the Internet Archive. Web sites in the collection can be discovered through browsable and searchable interfaces. Please review the Technical Architecture for more information on these interfaces.


More on the MINERVA project at this link.