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The Pandora Archive

The National Library of Australia, in conjunction with 10 partners - including most state libraries - maintains an intriguing archive of critical Australian web sites, called Pandora (pandora.nla.gov.au). The name Pandora comes from the National Library's mission in developing this source: Preserving and Accessing Networked DOcumentary Resources of Australia.

Starting back in 1996, the National Library became concerned about the amount of Australian information that was being published only in electronic format. Given the nature of the web, there is the chance that valuable information would disappear when deleted from a web site. The Pandora archive is not an attempt to archive every Australian web page; rather, the project established selection criteria for archiving Commonwealth government publications and other publications of national, state or local significance. The content of the site must be about Australia; on a subject of relevance to Australia and written by an Australian; or a contribution to international knowledge written by an Australian who is a recognised expert. The emphasis is on material that is considered authoritative and of long-term research value.

As of late March 2004, Pandora's box held over 18 million files; there are multiple copies of some sites, building an archive of the changing content of web sites over time.

The site is organised by special collection (including topics such as "Bushfires, Canberra, ACT, January 2003" and "Olympic Games - Sydney, 2000") and by broad category and subcategory. You can drill down from "Politics & Government" to "Election Campaigns", for example, and then browse the alphabetical list of titles within that subcategory. You can also search for a word within the archived page, although search results are a bit unpredictable, as some archived pages are full-text searchable and some are not.

Pandora is particularly useful for researchers interested in contemporaneous accounts or perspectives of an event or issue. Do you want to research Australian sites and organisations opposed to the war in Iraq? Do you want to see how those sites changed over time, from discussions of the threat of war to protesting the deployment of Australian troops? The collection of sites on the war include archived copies of these pages, along with a number of ABC reports on the war in Iraq, aid organisations and charities, and government web pages.

As large as the Pandora archive is now, it will become more valuable over time as the archive grows. One drawback of the design of the Pandora archive interface is that titles within a category are simply organised alphabetically, and some titles may include multiple pages. For example, within the Science & Technology category is a title "AEGIS working papers". Until you click that link, you do not realise that there are in fact a number of working papers archived, on topics ranging from the 'new production of knowledge' to the Australian clothing industry. This is, however, a minor quibble, given that this is an immense undertaking that will undoubtedly grow and mature over time.

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