What Not To Save: The Future of Ephemera

What Not To Save: The Future of Ephemera

Web archiving

In her presentation to the 2009 Media in Transition 6 Conference, Alison Byerly appeals to scholars of all disciplines to take an interest in web archiving and preserve the born digital byproducts of their daily online transactions. Byerly persuasively recounts reasons for valuing ephemera—accidental and unfiltered byproducts of daily life and work— and observes ephemera's unique status in the archive. She describes the accessioning and description of ephemera collections as a combination of professionalism and individual whimsy. These unofficial, curious remnants of the past provide rich historical context, even if they arrive without detailed documentation. In contrast to digital ephemera (such as popups and spam email) with their perceived lack of value and ease of disposal, print ephemera afford the fixity of time and distanced perspective that promote intellectual discovery. She avers that potential social and historical significance of electronic ephemera requires our recognition of its value and encourages individual as well as institutional acts of digital preservation. By enlisting all Internet users to preserve digital content they deem meaningful, Byerly believes the individual tastes and cultural oddities of this era may avoid becoming forgotten in the wake of impersonal, algorithmic-based search engines favoring a limited representation of digital content.

Byerly, Alison

2009

Conference Proceeding

Byerly, Alison. "What Not To Save: The Future of Ephemera." Paper presented at the MIT 6 Conference. Boston, MA, April 2009.http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/mit6/papers/Elish.pdf