Transcript Document 7363679

The Web History
Center
Dr. Bill Pickett
Presented at the NDIIPP conference
Washington, D.C.
June 2009
Our Goal:
 Create permanent
public access to the
sights, sounds,
documents and
programs that
chronicle the origins
and ongoing evolution
of the World Wide
Web
Know the Past.
Invent the Future.
 The World Wide Web has transformed the ways we use, store, and
communicate information, with a societal impact possibly as large as
that of Gutenberg’s printing press half a millennium ago.
 The WWW with seemingly limitless possibilities continues to evolve
and expand.
 Yet much of its history is being discarded, and nobody has
systematically tried to save it . . . . . . until now,
 The Web History Center aspires to preserve the learning and relevance
of early Web development as an educational resource to support future
Web use and development.
Why Preserve Web History?
 Posterity: so that our descendants may understand
their own history
 Pioneers: because those who have made history
deserve appropriate recognition
 Progress: so that Web pioneers of tomorrow can
learn from those today
 Protection: to establish and clarify intellectual
property rights and avoid costly patent suits; to help
firms leverage their own past accomplishments
What We Do
 Preserve: Collect at-risk historical materials from
pioneers, distribute them to our archiving
members for preservation
 Make Public: Make material public through our
wiki timelines, and through events and exhibits
with our members
 Collaborate: work with members to develop ways
for the Web to record its own ongoing history,
and to establish educational problems
Who We Are

Many of today’s leading experts and
institutions in the field:

Pioneers of the Web and the history of
technology

Twelve institutional members

Two host institutions:


the Computer History Museum (CA)

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (IN)
Representatives

U.S., England, France, Switzerland
We are growing…with your help
Our growth depends on new members
Members include:
Membership Qualifications
•
Web pioneers
•
•
Historians & archivists
A commitment to preservation
& public access
•
Museums, universities,
research institutes
•
Active & ongoing participation in
the WHC Advisory Board
•
Corporations
Rose-Hulman
Institute
of Technology
Computer History Museum
The Host
Institutions
Institutional Members

Stanford University Libraries – History of Science and Technologies
Collections

The Internet Archive

The International World Wide Web Conference Committee

Charles Babbage Institute

Rose- Hulman Institute of Technology

CommerceNet

The Computer History Museum

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

SRI International

Digibarn

Center for History and New Media, George Mason University

University of Maryland – Dot-Com Archive and Business Plan Archive
What Members Are Contributing
We will protect and make public materials collected
by members, including:









E-Commerce history, WWW conference history – papers, data,
and oral histories (Web History Center)
Nearly all HTML pages since 1995 (Internet Archive)
Video histories with pioneers – over 100 from 1995-2007 (Marc
Weber)
Invention and very early development of the Web (private
collections)
Virtual worlds (Digibarn)
Douglas Engelbart’s visionary work in hypertext and
networking (Stanford, SRI)
History of Mozilla (Center for History and New Media)
Dot-com boom and crash (University of Maryland)
The Web comes to America (SLAC)
We are currently working on…
 Curated Wiki timelines capturing the history of:



e-Commerce
International World Wide Web Conference Series
Virtual worlds
 A federated archive to let users seamlessly call up
multimedia material from any member’s collection
 Events and exhibits with members:


November 7 2007, internetworking anniversary with Vint Cerf
and Bob Kahn
CommerceNet reunion, fall 2007
How Can You Help?
 Let us know about historic materials, especially if “at risk”.
Ask your friends to do the same!
 Encourage your colleagues, company or institution to join
 Get involved:


Share subject matter expertise
Help us recruit board members and advisors
 Identify donors and corporate funding opportunities


Help us build infrastructure and sustainability
Suggest a sponsor for our Education Center…
a highly visible naming opportunity ($5M - $12M level)
The Web History Center
http:webhistory.org
Dr. William B. Pickett
Co-founder and Historian
Web History Center
Rose-Hulman Ventures
100 S Campus Dr. PO #3799
Terre Haute, IN 47803
USA
[email protected]
Phone: (+1) 651-207-4243
Fax: (+1) 812.244.4178