MAINTAINING THE MIRROR SITE OF THE INTERNET ARCHIVE

In January 2002, the Internet Archive in San Francisco donated a copy of the Internet Archive to Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA), thereby establishing the second center worldwide holding a full copy of the Internet Archive. The Internet Archive is a complete snapshot of all web pages on every website since 1996 till today. Since the average lifetime of a page on the Internet is 100 days, this snapshot is retaken every two months. The archive at BA includes 10 billion web pages from 1996–2001; 2000 hours of Egyptian and US television broadcast and 1000 archival films. It represents 100 terabytes of data stored on 200 computers. The archive is fully operational and the collection is accessible through the BA website using the Wayback Machine. Synchronization with the Internet Archive in San Francisco is carried out regularly especially after the Library upgraded to 155 Mbps. In order to maintain the mirror site, an agreement for building the second generation machines for web archiving, the Petabox, has been finalized. The Petabox is a machine designed to safely store and process one petabyte (a million gigabytes) of data. The machine features low power consumption, multi-operating systems, easy maintenance and software to automate mirroring. The new machines will be installed holding the web collections of 2002 through 2005 as well as collections of video, audio and text. New machines for the 2006 collection will be designed and manufactured locally. Throughout previous operation, analysis has been conducted into data failure rates and recovery methods in order to better maintain the preserved digital material. This analysis is shared with the San Francisco team and incorporated in the design of new machines. Work is in progress to invite researchers to work on the available wealth of data and build special collections reflecting the interests of BA patrons. In January 2002, the Internet Archive in San Francisco donated a copy of the Internet Archive to Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA), thereby establishing the second center worldwide holding a full copy of the Internet Archive. The Internet Archive is a complete snapshot of all web pages on every website since 1996 till today. Since the average lifetime of a page on the Internet is 100 days, this snapshot is retaken every two months. The archive at BA includes 10 billion web pages from 1996–2001; 2000 hours of Egyptian and US television broadcast and 1000 archival films. It represents 100 terabytes of data stored on 200 computers. The archive is fully operational and the collection is accessible through the BA website using the Wayback Machine. Synchronization with the Internet Archive in San Francisco is carried out regularly especially after the Library upgraded to 155 Mbps. In order to maintain the mirror site, an agreement for building the second generation machines for web archiving, the Petabox, has been finalized. The Petabox is a machine designed to safely store and process one petabyte (a million gigabytes) of data. The machine features low power consumption, multi-operating systems, easy maintenance and software to automate mirroring. The new machines will be installed holding the web collections of 2002 through 2005 as well as collections of video, audio and text. New machines for the 2006 collection will be designed and manufactured locally. Throughout previous operation, analysis has been conducted into data failure rates and recovery methods in order to better maintain the preserved digital material. This analysis is shared with the San Francisco team and incorporated in the design of new machines. Work is in progress to invite researchers to work on the available wealth of data and build special collections reflecting the interests of BA patrons. This pioneering endeavor is to preserve the diverse human knowledge in the modern times and make it equally accessible for the inhabitants of the whole region for the benefit and progress of present and future generations. Enriching the BA’s Universal Digital Library content will reflect positively in building an inclusive Information Society with special consideration of authors' and artists' rights supplying humanity with their creative and diversified work. This project has been submitted to the Golden Book database.

http://www.archive.bibalex.org/

International implementation

Ongoing from 2006

1. International School of Information Science (ISIS) 2. Internet Archive, San Francisco

* The role of governments and all stakeholders in the promotion of ICTs for development
* Access to information and knowledge
* International and regional cooperation

• Project