Freedom From BigBrother Now!

A lot of information about culture and tradition of the modern society is present online. Thus, websites have become valuable resources from a historical point of view. Recognising this fact, the British Library has recently sought government permission to archive websites. The purpose is to stop all this information from being lost in what the libraries have termed as the ‘digital black hole’.

At present there are nearly eight million websites, but new websites are continuously being created. A group of libraries had actually started archival work in 2004. But, it is only now that someone has placed a request to the government to allow them to archive all the websites. The libraries have already archived six thousand websites.

Since it is necessary to get formal permission from the owner of the website to archive it, the project is progressing at a slow pace. If the government gives permission to the libraries for automatic archival, then the individual owner’s permission will not be mandatory.

Critics of this project, including the news site The Register, have pointed out that this will be and expensive project, besides archiving a lot of unnecessary material since the web is flooded with content of dubious quality. It is a matter of concern whether public money should be spent on archiving material as pointless as celebrity blog sites and tweets.

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