R: [Air-l] on the web, research work proves ephemeral

[Luca Meyer]

Interesting. Is there anyway to refer to some permanent "copy" of the
web? I recall once I run into a copy of a web site I have run from 1996
to 1998 and that has been gone for several years now...I can't remember
the name of the service I used...could it be Alexa.com? Anyone
uses/recalls such a service?

Luca

Mr. Luca Meyer
consumer research advisor
http://www.lucameyer.com/en/ 

> -----Messaggio originale-----
> Da: air-l-admin at aoir.org [mailto:air-l-admin at aoir.org] Per 
> conto di Lokman Tsui
> Inviato: mercoledì 26 novembre 2003 9.56
> A: air-l at aoir.org
> Oggetto: [Air-l] on the web, research work proves ephemeral
> 
> 
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8730-2003Nov23?langu
> age=printer
> 
> By Rick Weiss
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Monday, November 24, 2003; Page A08
> 
> On the Web, Research Work Proves Ephemeral
> Electronic Archivists Are Playing Catch-Up in Trying to Keep 
> Documents 
> From Landing in History's Dustbin
> 
> It was in the mundane course of getting a scientific paper 
> published that 
> physician Robert Dellavalle came to the unsettling 
> realization that the 
> world was dissolving before his eyes.
> 
> The world, that is, of footnotes, references and Web pages.
> 
> Dellavalle, a dermatologist with the Veterans Affairs Medical 
> Center in 
> Denver, had co-written a research report featuring dozens of 
> footnotes -- 
> many of which referred not to books or journal articles but, as is 
> increasingly the case these days, to Web sites that he and 
> his colleagues 
> had used to substantiate their findings.
> 
> Problem was, it took about two years for the article to wind 
> its way to 
> publication. And by that time, many of the sites they had 
> cited had moved 
> to other locations on the Internet or disappeared altogether, 
> rendering 
> useless all those Web addresses -- also known as uniform 
> resource locators 
> (URLs) -- they had provided in their footnotes.
> 
> "Every time we checked, some were gone and others had moved," said 
> Dellavalle, who is on the faculty at the University of 
> Colorado Health 
> Sciences Center. "We thought, 'This is an interesting 
> phenomenon itself. 
> We should look at this.' " [.. see link above for rest of article .. ]
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Air-l mailing list
> Air-l at aoir.org
> http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l
>