Preservation of actively managed materials by building relationships with publishers is beyond the scope of this effort. A central part of the effort covered by this proposal is to begin the process of collecting and preserving selected open-access web sites. While there are many uncertainties, the area is sufficiently well understood that prototype collecting can begin almost immediately leading rapidly to a mainstream activity of the Library. The materials to select first are those where the creator or publisher makes no commitment to maintenance and preservation. For example, there are 5,000 online newspapers, few of which are preserved systematically.
Some web sites are for special events, such as campaign web sites created by political candidates.
Others are journals for which there are no paper versions, databases, and web sites of cultural or historical importance. Probably every curatorial division of the Library can identify important examples that should be preserved. Future generations may treasure IBM's 1996 Olympic Games web site with the affection that we now hold for films of Jessie Owens' triumphs in Berlin. The political web sites for the 2000 elections may prove as interesting to history as the films of John Kennedy's campaign speeches. The Library will have to select the most important of these materials, acquire copies and manage them in its own repositories, or in cooperation with other libraries and archives.