In an age where the digital world has become just as important as the real world, a project like the Internet Archive is almost too exciting for words.
Much like our own Archives, the project was founded with a need to preserve important aspects of the community at large. Established in 1996, it was also created “to build an Internet library, with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format.”
The Internet Archive currently houses millions of texts, audio, movies, and software within its “walls,” as well as a blast-from-the-past toy called the Wayback Machine. It also has a section titled Open Educational Resources, which provides access to university lectures and the like.
From the project’s mission statement:
The Internet Archive is working to prevent the Internet – a new medium with major historical significance – and other “born-digital” materials from disappearing into the past. Collaborating with institutions including the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, we are working to preserve a record for generations to come.