:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 ::

The web is a complex ever changing place, where nothing is certain for long. The average lifespan of a Web page is only 100 days. Of the 2,483 British government Web sites 25 percent change their URL each year. Robert Dellavalle, of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, found he had huge problems citing web links in the footnotes in research papers as the pages referenced were constantly moving or disappearing. This inspired him to write a new research paper on the subject; Going, Going, Gone: Lost Internet References. Summary, Full Text. He likens this trend to the burning of the library in Alexandria in 48 B.C., when the greatest repository of knowledge of the time was lost forever. This could happen again if we don’t take steps to avoid it and the paper includes some ideas about how this could be achieved.

(All the links in the paper seem to be good at the moment btw =] )

As an aside, I’ve just noticed that GussetBlog is now over one year old. As of the 20 November, the day Gusset was preoccupied with putting on our most recent gig, we should also have been celebrating having created one years worth of throwaway observation and now probably mostly dead links. Happy Birthday to us!

:: Dan 2.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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