Library of Congress to House Entire Twitter Archive

[babsbunny]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20100414/sc_livescience/libraryofcongresstohouseentiretwitterarchive

Dan Hope
TechNewsDaily Staff Writer
LiveScience.com Dan Hope
technewsdaily Staff Writer
livescience.com – 2 hrs 58 mins ago

The U.S. Library of Congress, which archives many forms of media for their cultural and historical significance, has announced it will keep a digital archive of every public tweet that has been broadcast on Twitter since its inception in March 2006.

It's only appropriate that the initial announcement of this project was given on the Library of Congress' Twitter account (@librarycongress) and was followed up by a Facebook message before the official press release is issued.

[CurtEastPoint]

1. Someone enlighten me and tell me what the value of that is. I'm open to suggestions. n/t

[eShirl]

5. a treasure trove for future historians

[XemaSab]

6. I think the one resource that future historians will be ALL OVER

is The Onion.

I think that's going to be THE window into our society in 100 years.

[TroglodyteScholar]

7. +1 from an 'area man' n/t

[CurtEastPoint]

8. That and the Daily Show! n/t

[eShirl]

9. You're right, they can go ahead throw out everything else right now.

[Posteritatis]

10. *Present* historians are. "Our Dumb Century" is golden. (nt)

[aquart]

11. Absolutely invaluable.

Instant reactions to events. Minutia of daily living.

Historians have never had this. I know that that I hope someone collected the Salon Table Talk Florida threads. I never read anything like them. As we waited for the Supreme Court decision and then the shock rippling across the country. Those threads had over 5000 messages a day, more immediately after the decision. It's the most astonishing time capsule of reaction AT THE MOMENT. Twitter is like that all the time.

[Captain Hilts]

2. They can't find nearly a third of their books, and they're going to do this. nt

[BlooInBloo]

3. Cool. No mater what the zomgtwitterizsostupid!! old folks say.

[madinmaryland]

4. WTF? They are archiving twitter, but not Democraticunderground???

:wtf:

Imagine all the kitten threads and olive garden threads that will not be saved for eternity!!!

[Beam Me Up]

14. Excellent point! n/t

[mmonk]

12. I guess I need to twitter more.

[Ian David]

13. I've blocked them on Twiter, and asked my followers to do the same.

Everyone BLOCK (but do NOT report) @librarycongress and @LawLibCongress http://tinyurl.com/y7c5v5z #p2 #tcot
http://twitter.com/IanDavidB/status/12230015070

[Posteritatis]

15. Which will accomplish what, exactly? (nt)

[Ian David]

16. Nothing. But it's a form of silent protest. n/t

[Posteritatis]

17. Which the LoC, with its one(1) followed Twitter, will never notice. (nt)

[Book Lover]

18. Why? (nm)

[Ian David]

19. UPDATE: Library of Congress to Archive All Tweets

Library of Congress to Archive All Tweets
April 14, 2010, 2:20 p.m.
By Daniel Newhauser
Roll Call Staff

Updated: April 15, 2:34 p.m.

<snip>

He added that the arrangement comes with a few stipulations: The tweets can only be used after a six-month delay and only for noncommercial research, public display by the Library and preservation.

<snip>

The statement included a quote from Margot Gerritsen, a professor with Stanford University’s Department of Energy Resources Engineering and head of the Center of Excellence for Computational Approaches to Digital Stewardship, a partnership with the LOC: “I think Twitter will be one of the most informative resources available on modern day culture, including economic, social and political trends, as well as consumer behavior and social trends.”

Matt Raymond, the Library’s director of communications, cited a few examples of historic tweets, such as the first ever tweet from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, then-Sen. Barack Obama’s tweet about winning the 2008 presidential election and a set of tweets from James Buck, a photojournalist who was arrested in Egypt but freed after Twitter drew attention to his plight.

More:
http://www.rollcall.com/news/45144-1.html?type=printer_friendly

They're also going to archive all the tweets from our Congress-Critters.