Columns
Dawson: Take some time to visit the Wayback Machine
It seems like we’re going to preserve and expand the current Rushville Public Library. That’s great news for a beautiful and historic structure, but it’s better news for those who are striving to preserve history.
There’s another place online that is doing just that. In my job, we often have to try to research things that are not as they are “now” online, but instead how they “were” online.
For example, if a large pharmaceutical firm suddenly had a problem with one of its drugs, the sales pitches for that drug would instantly disappear from the firm’s Web site. However, there is a way to be able to find Web pages from the past that still might contain that sales pitch and any public relations spin it contained.
You just have to remember one site: www.archive.org.
The nickname for the site is called the Wayback Machine. Those of us who grew up with the brilliant “Rocky and Bullwinkle” cartoons of the early ‘60s will recognize that term from the Mr. Peabody segment of the show. A bespectacled boy and his equally bespectacled dog had come up a time machine that would let them visit various eras in history. (Yes, there was once a time when animated shows on television actually taught you something.)
Here is a snippet from the archive.org Web site explaining what it’s all about:
The Internet Archive is working to prevent the Internet — a new medium with major historical significance — and other "born-digital" materials from disappearing into the past. Collaborating with institutions including the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, we are working to preserve a record for generations to come.
Open and free access to literature and other writings has long been considered essential to education and to the maintenance of an open society. Public and philanthropic enterprises have supported it through the ages.
The Internet Archive is opening its collections to researchers, historians, and scholars. The Archive has no vested interest in the discoveries of the users of its collections, nor is it a grant-making organization.
Up until just a couple of years ago, archive.org was simply a repository for those old Web pages. Now it is so much more.
There are online texts of books. There is a complete searchable database of audio and moving images. What makes this so much of a find is that most of what is saved is considered public domain. It no longer belongs to a publishing house or a movie company, it belongs to us all.
The moving images database is sort of like a youtube of history, sometimes in glorious color and often in beautiful black and white.
You can search by specific years, or subject matter. Just search the word Indiana and you’ll find Cold War films from Madison and videos shot and uploaded from the state’s flooding earlier this year.
There are campy advertisements from the 1950s. One of the gems I found was a collection of ads for the refreshment stands at drive-in movie theatres. (Watch for a guy who sounds like Father Guido Sarducci who’s pitching the popcorn.) There’s another one that was just for coffee at the drive-in. Search terms: very special coffee.
The other benefit of the moving images database is that it allows independent filmmakers a chance to get their work out for all to see. Sometimes it’s nothing more than vacation movies and interviews with family members, but it’s also a chance for more expanded documentaries or fiction that you’d never be able to find at your local 56 screen multiplex.
And it’s free. For that reason alone, it’s worth a visit.
Rick Dawson is a reporter for WISH-TV Channel 8 a Rush County resident and a regular columnist for the Rushville Republican. You can reach him at rdawson@wishtv.com or rdawson@lightbound.com. Add a comment at www.rushvillerepublican.com.
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