Well, unless there's someone out there keeping track of all these websites, they disappear into the Cyber-Cemetery. The good news for Australia is that our National Library, in partnership with most State Libraries, Screensound Australia, and the Australian War Memorial, is keeping track of these websites. Not every single one, of course, but those of importance to Australians in some way.

This is achieved through the PANDORA Archive. PANDORA is an acronym for Preserving and Accessing Networked DOcumentary Resources of Australia and was begun in 1996. It is only concerned with archiving Australian information as it became clear that many important publications were being made available on the Web and not in print. Two of the main goals of the Archive are to ensure long-term access to these publications and to preserve Australia's published heritage.

Due to a lack of funding, the labour and cost-intensiveness of the project, and quality issues, the PANDORA Archive is selective. Not every site that is published and/or disappears off the Web will be included in PANDORA. Librarians working on the project follow a strict set of selection guidelines when choosing sites for inclusion in the Archive. To begin with they have decided to prioritise collecting web sites providing government and university publications and reports, conference proceedings, e-journals, and topical sites. They may also choose to archive some annual reports, maps, substantial literary works, public accountability documents (such as environmental impact statements), and so on.

There are numerous challenges in such an undertaking. Not only are there issues with how sites are 'harvested' for possible selection, there is also the concern about keeping sites as fully accessible as possible into the future. Technology changes so rapidly, plans have to be put in place to ensure that when the technology used today becomes obsolete in the near future, these resources will still be accessible.

Many sites are archived periodically because their content changes. So, you can see what the site is like today, or when it was last on the Web, and what it was like the first, second, or third time it was archived by PANDORA. It's an interesting look not only at a particular web site, but also the history of Australian information published on the Internet.

You can search PANDORA by typing in keywords, or you can browse by subject. The main topics are listed on the home page, but above these you will find a drop-down subject menu to enable you to choose a more specific topic. A complete listing of titles in PANDORA is also available.

The PANDORA Archive is a great service and is full of useful and interesting information. Despite low funding and other constraints, nearly 5000 titles have been archived in PANDORA each month for the last couple of months. Take a look at Australia's web heritage at: pandora.nla.gov.au