Hoovering the Web for Posterity

While perusing a back issue of Mother Jones the other morning, and after the mag sent me running to my cupboards to determine how many foods I bought containing unnatural amounts of corn syrup (not too many, as it turns out, though I discovered my backup can of peas contains SUGAR, for goodness' sake!), I read an interview with author William T. Vollmann. I've not read any of his voluminous works, but he has a cult following and he mentioned something I wanted to share with you.

Vollmann isn't a big fan of the Web largely because of its mutability of information. He would like the Library of Congress to make "archival hard copies of the Internet each day. Because then you would have copies of something you could trust 100 years from now."

Can you imagine? A Big Slurp of the Web every day and stored for infinity. This would be a researcher's dream and a forest's nightmare.

Vollmann lost me with the "hard" copy part. The reams of paper and storage space necessary for such an endeavor are unimaginable. Better to keep it digital. But still: Capturing every change made to every Web posting in the world every day.