Join me, fellow time travelers, as we take our curiosity voyage to the bygone era of the 1990’s and beyond. But before we can begin to surf the World Wide Web, let’s take a moment to familiarize ourselves with our tools. For today’s journey, we won’t be needing a Tardis, a phone booth, a Time Machine, or a DeLorean. Instead, we’ll be traveling through time and space by way of the WayBack Machine.
In the world of online information, the landscape is in constant flux. One day your favorite website updates its design, stops posting, or vanishes, where does that information go? Thanks to the WayBack Machine, an initiative of the Internet Archive, we are able to access snapshots of the online past.
As of the writing of this post, the Internet Archive and the WayBack Machine have archived well over 835 billion websites. Just take a look at our website circa 2002!
As much as we love the WayBack Machine, it is but one of the Internet Archives projects seeking to preserve and increase access to information.
The Internet Archive, itself, archives and allows users to archive, all sorts of information from software and audio recordings, to maps and rare books. As of the time of writing, the Archive provides access to 44 million books – that’s just books!
It’s difficult to even scratch the surface of what the Internet Archive has or does. The best way to know more about it is to dive in yourself. So, whether you are looking for a rare book, watching the evolution of the internet, or looking for the software that ran your original PlayStation, the Internet Archive is a great resource for students, scholars, and the curious.