![]() Another, launched at the same time, is the Webcomics Web Archive that focuses on comics, such as XKCD, created specifically for the web. The Web Cultures Web Archive is not the only born digital collection under the Library of Congress’ umbrella. “The actual works are digital to begin with.” I think people pigeonhole ‘folklife’ into thinking it’s something very specific, when it’s really got this rather broad sense of the everyday on how we communicate with each other. “We’re not in a situation where we could go back to the analog originals and try and make some derivatives again,” like photos or other digital copies, Owens said. Overall, Owens said the Web Cultures Web Archive is a good example of what’s called “born digital” content, which requires a different way of thinking when archivists want to preserve it for future generations. She did not tell GeekWire what that word was. “For example, I had Urban Dictionary up for a group of visitors and looked up at the word of the day and went, ‘Oh my gosh.'” “When you’re documenting expressive culture, you’re going to find things that are a little questionable to some,” Saylor recalled. Early text-based Urban Dictionary from the archive, 2005. Slashdot, meantime, seems to have barely changed visually in the more than one thousand versions archived since 2001. Urban Dictionary was essentially plain text in 2005. Many of the sites have gone through dramatic changes over time, all visible through the Archive. As its catalog page dryly notes, “The Pacific Northwest tree octopus website is among a number of sites commonly used in Internet literacy classes in schools, although it was not created for that purpose.” Now the cephalopod has a home in the Archive under the subject headings of hoaxes, internet literacy, and folklore and mythology. The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, saved at last in the Web Cultures Web Archive. Dating back to 1998, the site supposedly documented an endangered species that was able to live both on land and water, including in the Olympic National Forest and nearby rivers. As the Archive listing notes, “The show found an unlikely audience in adult, mostly male, internet users who are far outside the target demographic of little girls.”Īnother unique site in the collection is Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. It’s a major fan site for “bronies,” or fans of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic animated television series. Equestria Daily, a “bronies” site, as described in the Archive.Įquestria Daily, for example. ![]() Some of the archived sites may defy expectations. “I think people pigeonhole ‘folklife’ into thinking it’s something very specific,” Owens said, “When it’s really got this rather broad sense of the everyday on how we communicate with each other.” The process was purposely open and, in effect, crowdsourced. “We sent email to a group of folklorists and people working in digital culture and asked for nominations,” Saylor said. Saylor and Owens worked together on the project, getting input from a variety of sources on what to include. “I thought, ‘Wow, there’s a whole class of documentation that we’re not currently getting, or we’re not getting it at a scale that’s going to be of any use to researchers.'” Saylor said the idea to pull together web folklore started, in part, when she was at a professional conference. “I was sitting at the American Folklore Society annual meeting and I was listening to a panel of graduate students talking about Slenderman and that phenomena on the web,” she said. Nicki Saylor, head of American Folklife Center Archive. Trevor Owens, Library of Congress’s head of digital content management for library services. The collection includes sites that feature memes (Know Your Meme, YTMND, Meme Generator), language (NetLingo, Urban Dictionary), emojis and GIFs (Giphy, Emojipedia), and even internet hoaxes (Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus). The initial set of sites - archived in many versions over time, going back to the turn of the century - runs the gamut. Part of the Library’s American Folklife Center, the Web Cultures Web Archive is now available online both as a resource for researchers and a reference for those curious about how the web has changed our cultural lives. That’s the kind of choice the Library of Congress had to make for its unique Web Cultures Web Archive, a collection of more than 30 sites documenting cultural traditions that have emerged on the web itself. If you had to describe the unique “culture” of the web by highlighting a bunch of websites, would you choose Slashdot? Giphy? Or both? ![]() The Library of Congress’ Web Cultures Web Archive, now available online. ![]()
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