The Brian Lehrer Show
Preserving the Internet
Apr 17, 2025
Mark Graham, Director of the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive, plays a crucial role in preserving digital history. He discusses the challenges of maintaining web content as companies move away from preservation. Graham highlights initiatives like the End of Term Archive to safeguard U.S. government sites and stresses the importance of transparency in community governance. Personal anecdotes reveal the significance of capturing personal narratives, ensuring that voices from the past, like those of WWII veterans, remain accessible for future generations.
26:18
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Quick takeaways
- The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine captures about one billion URLs daily, preserving vital digital history against potential erasure by authorities.
- Proactive projects like the End of Term Archive aim to systematically document government website changes, promoting accountability and preserving public access to information.
Deep dives
The Role of the Internet Archive
The Internet Archive serves as a crucial digital research library with the mission of providing universal access to all knowledge. It operates the Wayback Machine, which has been capturing web pages since 2001, archiving a significant portion of the internet to prevent the loss of digital content. The archive preserves a vast amount of material, capturing around one billion URLs every day, thereby maintaining a historical record of the web. This effort is essential as websites are often ephemeral, and without such archival processes, valuable information could be irretrievably lost.
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