Project Overview
The Book
The Archives
Sponsors/Contributors
Request for Source Materials
Request for Support
Project Overview
Know the past. Invent the future.
The World Wide Web History Project is a collaborative effort to record and publish the history of the World Wide Web and its roots in hypermedia and networking. Its founding principle is to work together in as open and cooperative a manner as possible in producing a definitive history and historical archive of the Web. Explicit goals are to provide accurate and balanced history with input from as many sources as possible and maximum access to the results worldwide. The Project is currently taking steps to incorporate as a non-profit organization.
To date the Project has used two primary research methods: personal recollections, either taken down in interviews or recorded on their own time by sources, and archival research. We have been videotaping nearly all interviews in digital video format. Besides offering CD-quality sound and near-broadcast quality video, this format makes it easy to output still shots from video.
Flying into Champaign, Illinois, home of NCSA.
In April 1997, the Project held a special Web History Day track at the Sixth International World Wide Web Conference in Santa Clara, California. On hand were a number of speakers, including Ted Nelson, who for the first time ever addressed an audience of contemporary Web developers. An exhibit was created that included Tim Berners-Lee's original NeXT machine, running the first Web browser software, and a number of other machines showcasing pioneering hypertext software and Web sites.
The first fruit of this Project is our upcoming book on the invention of the World Wide Web, from the origins of hypertext to "lost" features to future directions. The book is written in a dramatic style, and is aimed at the mass-market as well as sophisticated readers. The temporary working name for the book is The Making of the World Wide Web.
In the course of researching the book, the Project has inevitably produced the largest archive of Web source material in existence. This forms the core of the Project's upcoming digital library and timeline covering every aspect of the Web and related technologies. This library will serve as a historical repository as well as an ongoing public research tool. All sources for the book as well as the public will be able to add events and media to this archive. We hope these sites, in cooperation with others, will form the kernel of a valuable research resource.
Douglas Engelbart, one of the inventors of hypertext.
The Project is currently considering appropriate partners to produce documentaries on the history of the Web. Besides our expertise on the subject, we can offer over 200 hours of videotaped interviews with all key sources for the history, shot in high resolution digital video format.
A number of organizations and people have provided crucial cooperation to the Project, however, editorial control is independent, to separate the output of the Project from any institutional interests.
More about the Project's contributors...
We are gathering and preserving all materials we can from the history of the Web and related technologies. Depending on media type and subject, these will be preserved by the Project, The Internet Archive, The Computer Museum, Stanford University, or combinations of the above. All of these materials will eventually be available via our digital library.
Examples of materials we seek include: recollections, software, screen shots, data, server logs, personal notebooks, documentation, machine names and locations, buildings and locations, office locations, development timelines, articles, movies, images, papers, specifications, presentations, checklists, employee records, posters, pens, pins, buttons and other assorted memorabilia, as well as other miscellaneous sources of information.
If you have any material that may be relevant:
- If the material can be physically shipped, please send it to the Project's main address.
- If the material can be digitally uploaded, you will be able to submit it to the archives via the Internet once this capability is in place. Until then, please contact the Webmaster at [email protected].
- If you have recollections or stories to share, you can either contribute to the Project's public Web history mailing list, record an audio tape or videotape of yourself, or ask us in interview you.
Arrangements can be made for copyrighted and/or private materials as well as shipping of large items.
So far the World Wide Web History Project has primarily relied on seed funding from Arcady Press, an independent publisher. We are now in the process of assembling a Board of Directors to incorporate as a non-profit corporation, and are seeking various kinds of support, from funding, to equipment, to volunteer time.