Is There a Way Back or Can the Internet Remember its Own History?

As we shift from analogue to digital media as the predominant means to
express ourselves and to communicate with each other, the question how we
construct personal and cultural memory in and of cyberspace becomes
increasingly important. Considering the ephemeral nature of digital
information in the Internet, this paper asks how the vast amounts of digital
information in this global communication and information network will be
memorized. The paper focuses on the Internet Archive‟s effort to preserve the
entire Internet for future generations. Facing the risk a “Digital Dark Ages”,
the Internet Archive was founded in 1996 by a group of visionaries around
Brewster Kahle, at a time when years of the Webs history already have been
lost forever. Converging with the “database logic” of the new media, the
Internet Archive does not form a narrative of the Internet‟s history. Drawing
upon a media archaeological approach, some technological and conceptual
means underlying the Internet Archive‟s attempt to preserve the entire
Internet is discussed. The paper concludes asking what kind of memory we
can gain by accessing the Web Archive.