Forbes, UNC and the oldest Web page – We have the last here

ibiblio and our director, Paul Jones, have gotten a lot of media attention for our digital preservation efforts (sometimes wrongly called hoarding). Seems we have the World’s oldest World Wide Web page, a version that Tim Berners-Lee used for his demonstration at Hypertext 91 in San Antonio, TX.

We’ve included links to many versions of the story below. Jones’ own version is on his Real Paul Jones blog.

But the most amusing recognition has come from the University of North Carolina entry at the Forbes America’s Top Colleges site. There in the Profile section, we read:

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is home to one of the oldest preserved websites, stored on an antique computer maintained by Professor Paul Jones, gifted to him by one of the original Swedish architects of the World Wide Web. Established in 1789, UNC Chapel Hill is one of the three oldest universities in the country, the second largest university in the state, and one of the original eight Public Ivy schools. UNC Chapel Hill students, alumni and athletic teams are known collectively as the Tar Heels, and have garnered more than 40 NCAA championship titles in six different sports (women’s lacrosse won this year). The school mascot is the Ram.

While we know that Tim Berners-Lee is British and was working in Switzerland at CERN with no particular Swedish connection and we know that “gifted” should not be a verb and we know that the page has been online continuously since 1993 (at least), we’re delighted to be seen as having something that UNC and Forbes can be proud of.

Enjoy the articles and the World’s oldest World Wide Web page.

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