Answer Form
The Web as a historical source; what historians need to know
Available at: https://ranke2.uni.lu/u/webarchives/ 

1 out of 5 The web and its technologies 
Available at: https://ranke2.uni.lu/u/webarchives/#assignment-01-web-technologies 
1.a The history of the web and the technology behind it

Questions 
-	Why was Tim Berners-Lee’s innovation fundamental for the development of the web?
-	What is the difference between HTTP and HTML?
-	What is a URI/URL?
-	What is the difference between a web server and a web browser?
-	What is the main difference between Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 technologies?
Answers 

1.b The difference between the web and the internet

 	Common things done on a computer/smartphone	Uses the internet but not the web	Uses both the internet and the web	
Searching for a picture on Google	 	 	 	
Using Skype for a video call	 	 	 	
Checking email with an application	 	 	 	
Looking at your Facebook or Instagram feed on a web browser	 	 	 	
Sharing a file with someone via a peer-to-peer file network	 	 	 	
Downloading a file from a website	 	 	 	
Making a call via FaceTime	 	 	 	

1.c The materiality of the internet

Questions on: TED lecture by Andrew Blum: “What is the Internet, really?” (2012) 
URL: https://youtu.be/XE_FPEFpHt4 (12 mins).
-	Is this information new to you? 
-	How does this information compare to what you imagined the internet to be?
-	What is meant by the line “wired people should know something about wires”? (min. 11.34)
Answers 

Questions on: “Submarine Cable Map 2015” by Telegeography
URL: https://submarine-cable-map-2015.telegeography.com/ 
-	Where do you notice the highest and lowest concentration of cables?
-	What does this suggest regarding power and control in world politics?
-	Conduct some additional web research and find out how many undersea cables have been built since and now exist in total. Remember to cite your source!
Answers

1.d Information systems and power

After watching the two videos recommended in section 1.d (please refer to the website for further references and links).
Write a short essay of 500 words in which you incorporate the answers to the following questions:
-	What were the predecessors of the internet cables at the bottom of the ocean?
-	Why were they laid, for what reason and by whom?
-	What do you think is the connection with regard to the division of power worldwide between those who had the resources to invest in the system of underwater telegraph cables in the past, and those who at present have taken up this role for fiberglass cables?
-	Who was the owner of these systems in the 19th century, and who owns the cables that are laid out to connect us with the internet worldwide? What are the implications of this ownership for freedom of information?
Essay 

2 The archived web for historians
Available at: https://ranke2.uni.lu/u/webarchives/#assignment-02-archived-web-historians 
2.a The difference between the live web and the archived web

Questions on: Using Web Archives in Research: An Introduction by Janne Nielsen (Aarhus: NetLab, 2016) 
URL: https://dighumlab.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Nielsen_Using_Web_Archives_in_Research.pdf
Questions:
-	Why were web archives created and how can they be used?
-	What is the definition of web archiving as given by the International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC)?
-	How often did a typical web page last before it changed or disappeared from the year 2000 to 2010? How does this differ from the pace of changes at present?
-	In what ways is web archiving different from traditional archiving?
-	What are some challenges associated with web archiving?
-	Imagine yourself in a future professional role (not necessarily a historian): in what kind of situation would knowledge about web archiving be useful?

Answers

Refer to the hypothetical example provided in the 2.a (please refer to the website) and answer the following questions: 
-	What are some potential reasons why the website changed and then disappeared between the different dates that you accessed it?
-	How might you go about trying to recover the information you remember seeing but can no longer access?

Answers 

2.b Familiarising yourself with the Wayback Machine

After reading general information about Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine available on the website of Internet Archive, answer the following questions:
-	What is the difference between the Internet Archive and the Wayback Machine?
-	What is the criterion for web pages to be collected by the Wayback Machine?
-	Who can access the information available on the Wayback Machine?
-	What organisations does the IA work with and what is the rationale behind the collaboration?
The same section of the lesson points to a tutorial on how to use the Wayback Machine (please refer to the website). Read it and answer the following questions:
-	Do you search for snapshots (saved versions) of a web page in the Wayback Machine with key terms or with a specific URL?
-	What are the benefits and disadvantages of the Wayback Machine’s system of finding past saved versions of a web page?
-	Where can you find the number of times a particular URL has been saved in the Wayback Machine?
-	What information can you tell about a snapshot just by looking at its URL?
-	How can you find out which organisation or robot performed the crawl for the snapshot you are looking at?
Answers

2.c The original ambitions of the Wayback Machine compared to later thoughts

Questions on: Brewster Kahle, “Universal Access To All Knowledge”, 2011 https://archive.org/details/brewsterkahlelongnowfoundation 
- What was the Library of Alexandria?
- How would you describe Brewster Kahle’s idea of “universal access to all knowledge” in your own words?
- What is the value of preserving web pages for a historian?
- Why are there multiple physical locations for the digital archives of the Internet Archive?

Answers 

Questions on: Brewster Kahle, “Building trust when truth fractures”, 2019 Charleston Conference, 2019 https://youtu.be/bA67X9y-ozc 
- What strikes you as different compared to the ideas expressed in the previous suggested resource?
- In your opinion, why might Kahle’s idea have changed?
- Do you think this collaboration with Wikipedia is a good direction for the Internet Archive and the Wayback Machine to go in? Why or why not?

2.d Explore how the web pages of Google and YouTube have been preserved

Google home page - questions
-	How many captures of Google’s home page have been made? 
-	Over what period were the captures of Google’s home page made?
-	Who created this? 
-	When did they create it?
-	Why did they create it? 
-	How did they create it? 
-	What was their purpose in creating it? 
-	How was it used at the time?
-	How did it look at the time compared to other similar sources? 
-	Purpose of the company
-	Why the name “Google”?

Answers 

 
YouTube home page – questions
-	What are your first impressions of YouTube’s first archived home page?
-	What happens when you try to click on tabs of the first archived page? 
-	What does this mean for using the Wayback Machine as a resource for archiving web pages?
-	Would the Wayback Machine be useful to you if you wanted to know whether the character of the uploaded material on YouTube has changed between 2005 and 2010?

Answers 

Compare two archived versions of the YouTube home page dated from 2005 and 2015
 	2005	2015	
Design features	 	 	
Navigation links at the top	 	 	
Information about the company	 	 	
What can be accessed	 	 	
Notes about privacy	 	 	
Notes about copyright	 	 	

3 out of 5 Web archives and the national dimension: The example of the Luxembourg Web Archive and luxembourg.lu

3.a Challenges and limits of preservation: The example of the Luxembourg Web Archive 
Available at: https://ranke2.uni.lu/u/webarchives/#assignment-03-webarchive-national-dimension 
Questions
-	Regarding the collection policy of the LWA, who or what are Luxembourgish publishers?
-	How many times a year do you (the BnL) archive the Luxembourgish web?
-	Which types of websites do you archive (e.g. government sites, news agency sites, personal blogs, etc.)?
-	How can someone access the information in the LWA?
-	What is your process for collecting information for the LWA? (Hint: it’s a three-step process)
-	What are the three different types of crawls used by the LWA and what are the differences between them?
-	What are some of the reasons that you might decide not to collect a website? 
3.b Exploring Luxembourg web content

Inspecting the page https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.luxembourg.lu 
Questions
-	Select and inspect two elements on this page that provide information about how the Internet Archive has archived the web page that corresponds to this specific URL.
-	Select one element that provides information about the archived web page itself.
-	What does the note under the calendar tell us? 
-	How many captures of the site www.luxembourg.lu have been made and over what period? 
-	Is the distribution of captures evenly spread over time?
Answers 

Under the URL search bar, click on the “Summary” button for statistics and details about the archived snapshots of the `www.luxembourg.lu` web page.
Questions
-	How many captures of the site were made in 1996? How many in 2005?
-	What can be inferred from this? Why do you think the number of captures might be uneven over time?
-	What does this mean for using the Wayback Machine as a resource for archiving web pages?
Answers 

Inspect the snapshot taken on 9 November 1996 at 20:07:38: https://web.archive.org/web/19961109200738/http://www.luxembourg.lu/  
Questions
-	What does this page show?
-	Is there any information on the date of creation or the author? What about any temporal information?
Answers 

Inspect the snapshot taken on 22 March 2003 at 18:49:25: https://web.archive.org/web/20030322184925/http://www.luxembourg.lu/](https://web.archive.org/web/20030322184925/http://www.luxembourg.lu/ 
Questions
-	What does this page show?
-	Is there any more information about the source (date, author, etc.)? What elements seem to be relevant or missing?
-	What does the “About this capture” button in the upper right-hand corner tell us?
-	In your opinion, what is the most noticeable change between the archive of 9 November 1996 and that of 22 March 2003?
Answers 

Choose a snapshot taken within the last five years 
Question
What are some of the first things you notice about it?
Answer 

Compare the three archived snapshots (from 1996, 2003 and the one of your choice), write a paragraph summarizing how the luxembourg.lu website has changed over a 20-year period. You can find some instructions below: 
-	Who created this website and why? 
-	What kind of functions did a website offer at the time?
-	How were these functions catered for before the evolution of the web? 
-	Did the function of the website change over time?
-	Consider changes in the appearance and content of the website: the URLs, colours/fonts, structure, tabs, etc. 
-	Discuss the possible uses of this archived site for historians
Answers 

4 out 5 The policy of an international institution: How the European Union preserves its web archives
URL: https://ranke2.uni.lu/u/webarchives/#assignment-04-International-Institutions-EU 
4.a The European Union Web Archive

Compare the web archives of the European Court of Justice and the European Institute for Gender Equality websites. Use the Wayback Machine and the two URL below.
URL 1: https://curia.europa.eu/
URL 2: https://eige.europa.eu/ 

	
European Court of Justice	European Institute for Gender Equality	
Overview	
In what year was it founded?
(if necessary, make use of Wikipedia)			
What is the mission of the agency?			
Older archived web pages	
What are the first archived web pages that you can find with the Wayback Machine?
What year and what date?
In what language(s)?			
What are the titles of the different pages of the website? Does the structure make sense to you?			
With the oldest archived web page available, try and find the page that gives the best overview of what the website contains and share the heading and the link of that page (often this is the home page, but not always)			
Is there a search function that gives access to one or more databases?
What do these databases contain?			
Can you upload or download content?			
The most recent archived versions of the websites (this year)	
Reflect on the changes that you can identify between the first and the last archived website of the respective EU institutions			
Do the changes reflect a different course that the agency took during this period? This could be:
•	expanding its mission and/or services
•	merging with other agencies or moving its premises to cut costs
•	adjusting its policies to adapt to new countries joining the EU			
Do the changes consist of a more modern design and/or an increase in functionalities?
This could be:
•	from static to interactive
•	providing access to databases with search functionalities
•	moving from face-to-face to online services
•	offering streaming services
•	providing a web design that is responsive to tablets and smartphones			

4.b The websites of the two EU agencies within the broader picture of web history

Write a short essay of 500 words on: 
“What kind of historical information does a website offer us?” 

5 out of 5 Micro-archiving: Family and personal archives in the digital age
URL: https://ranke2.uni.lu/u/webarchives/#assignment-05-Micro-archiving-family 
5.a A website about a grandfather’s life

Questions 
Search on the web to find family histories about grandfathers and grandmothers in the language of your preference or using this combination of keywords:
-	Stories from my grandparents / grandfather/ grandmother
-	Geschichte meine Grosseltern / Grossmutter/ Grossvater
-	Histoire de mes grands-parents / ma grand-mère / mon grand-père
Choose a website you found and note its URL: 
-	Check whether the Wayback Machine has preserved the content of the website
-	Is the information about the grandparent created on the spot, like a blog post, or is it something that already existed in digital form and has been uploaded to the web environment?
-	If there are two files, one on your device or computer – e.g. the interview you conducted with your grandfather – and one online that you uploaded to a website where memories of a region are collected, do you need to preserve both?
-	Think about the interactive nature of a website and the need to convert big files to be able to publish them on the web. How would you go about doing so?
Answers 

5.b Archiving your own future historical sources

Questions 
What kind of content have you uploaded or posted on the web?
-	Are you represented with your name, photo and profile on a social media platform? If so, which one(s)?
-	Can you trace this back with the Wayback Machine?
-	Does a text, video, image or audio file created by you feature on a specific website/page (maybe years ago when you were at primary or secondary school)?
-	Is part of your personal life and history also documented in analogue form through photo albums, handwritten letters, postcards or diaries?
Answers