Raiders of the Lost Web
Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic, 2015/10/16

We read a lot about how the internet never forgets. That's not even remotely true. I've posted tons of stuff on the web (including entire courses and websites) that are long gone. This article affirms that. "Today’s great library is being destroyed even as it is being built. Until you lose something big on the Internet, something truly valuable, this paradox can be difficult to understand." This article describes one case in which an article nominated for a Pulitizer in 2008 simply vanished from the web. The problem is maintenance. “The day-in, day-out maintenance [of the site] just stopped happening, and so pretty quickly, some stuff didn’t work,” Vaughan said. Your 'permanent' Facebook record will exist only so long as it is profitable for Facebook to keep it alive. Once Facebook decides to pull the plug - *poof* it's gone. Same with your coursework, your discussion posts, everything you post on third party sites online. Keep that in mind.

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Half-life is half the story
Danny Kingsley, Unlocking Research, 2015/10/16

This post is a response to a recent panel in which Elsevier c.e.o. Ron Mobed said that Green Open Access threatens the viability of academic journals and that the embargo period must eb longer than 12 months. "The community will regret it if it sees journals collapsing.” Well, maybe not. But that's not the point of this response. In it, Danny Kingsley responds that "There is no evidence that permitting researchers to make a copy of their work available in a repository results in journal subscriptions being cancelled. None." That's actually disappointing to me, as I would have hoped institutions would be able to save journal subscription costs by encouraging Green OA. Image: AWOL.

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