Birth of the Dot Com Era Project
Lead Partner: University of Maryland, Robert H. Smith School of Business
Additional Partners: Center for History and New Media, George Mason University; Gallivan, Gallivan & O’Melia LLC; Morrison & Foerster, LLP; Ropers, Majeski, Kohn & Bentley PC
Business records are primary resources for historians researching our past. They help future generations know the story of American innovation. "Birth of the Dot Com Era" preserves at-risk digital materials from the American business culture during the early years of the commercialization of the Internet, from 1994 to 2001. The Digital Archive of the Birth of the Dot Com Era collects content, including business, marketing and technical plans; venture presentations; and other business documents from more than 2,000 failed and successful Internet startups. These records are collected through personal donation to http://www.businessplanarchive.org, through special agreement with venture captial firms, and via an unprecedented court decisions to archive the records of a bankrupt silicon valley law firm. The private nature of many of these records allows the testing of secure and limited access archive systems.
Objectives:
- Identify, collect and preserve born-digital business records
- Create a closed archive for preserving digital legal records
- Support incentives and policies to enable the preservation of valuable yet sensitive records
More detailed project information can be found at the Project Web site
Highlights:
-
Dr. David Kirsch, the principal investigator on the Birth of the Dot Com Era project discussed "A Public Interest in Private Records," March 17, 2009 at the Library of Congress. The webcast from this presentation is now available. Slides from the presentation are also available (PDF, 1.67 Mb).
- Interview with David Kirsch
- Brobeck Hearing Transcript - Excerpt (PDF, 44 Kb)
- Closed Archive Methodology (PDF, 48 Kb)
