History as it happens an important collection of past websites revealing history as it unfolds in the digital age. The importance is huge as the transient nature of the web can mean that important projects will be lost over time without such work. 

Since 2004 The British Library has had a new and important section to it’s collections known as The UK Web Archive Project.

• Collecting thousands of websites which provide a great resource for family and local historians.
• If you know of a site that you believe needs saving for the future then consider nominating it for this important collection.
• Enables us tolocate information no longer available on the live Web and observe a spectrum of UK activities represented online.
• Sites that no longer exist elsewhere are found here and those yet to be archived can be saved for the future by nominating them.

“The Archive contains sites that reflect the rich diversity of lives and interests throughout the UK. Search is by Title of Website, Full Text or URL, or browse by Subject, Special Collection or Alphabetical List.”

 

Take a look and use the archive, this vital work needs public support to ensure it continues to be well funded in this difficult economic climate.

• Nominate a site using this link
• Search by Subject (a detailed index, by collection, website title or free text, it is a great resource for family british and social history and brilliantly is tracking what happens on the web in a continuous timeline.

Here are the latest statistics giving you sense of the size and growth of the collections:

Statistics at 11 February , 2012

	This month	Last month	Growth this month
Number of Archived Websites	9,902	9,753	149
Number of Archived Instances	42,655	41,142	1,513
Data Size	11.88TB	10.39TB	1.49TB

That is a lot of data in just a few years, what a demand on resources that will make in a hundred years…The shape of archives to come is critical with the pervasiveness of the net and blogs if historical records are to survive, given much is now never written on paper…

We are always on the lookout for new and intriguing resources to share, if you come across a source collection or archive that you find particularly useful, just let us know, maybe write a guest post and share your experience so others can benefit from that knowledge. It is easy, just use our Contact form and we can send you a link so you can input your entry directly.

Please do support this important resource for historians now and for the future it is a great project: