We are thrilled to announce the newest addition to our DNS-OARC family: the Internet History Initiative. This partnership marks an exciting chapter in our journey towards advancing the understanding and preservation of Internet history.
Overview:
The Internet History Initiative explores decentralized, community-driven approaches to preserving, curating, and analyzing Internet history. IHI delves into the evolution of today’s global internet infrastructure, documenting the day-to-day changes over many decades.
Goals of the Project:
- Preservation of data sources hosted by various institutions
- Curating datasets describing the past structure and functions of the Internet
- Extending recorded history with interpretative derived datasets for broader research applications
- Building tools and visualizations to make Internet history accessible to non-technical audiences
“Why do we need it?
The Internet underpins much of modern civilization, yet researchers from beyond the Internet’s core technical community have never had good access to well-interpreted data about the evolution of the regional and global Internet over time. If we can put quantitative tools and timeseries into the hands of the relevant researchers who study (for example) violence, employment, public health, and political science, we can help tackle bigger research questions collaboratively.” — Founder James Cowie
Learn more about DNS-OARC at https://dns-oarc.net.
