The web is becoming the favourite information tool of many people, but if websites are not preserved, some precious educational, cultural and scientific resources could be lost in the future.

So, a two-year project led by the British Library will archive some 6,000 websites covering life in the UK. The aim is to make the web archive available to the public in January 2005.

On the other side of the Channel, The Bibliothèque nationale de France is launching a similar operation trying to preserve some 250.000 « .fr » websites.

The BNF will follow the path led by the US, collecting websites focusing on particular themes (e.g. the 2002 French presidential election) and using a software -already pioneered by Sweden- that “takes a picture” of all the « .fr » websites. The operation relies also on a volunteers: the BNL is asking richly documented websites to legally deposit their “web wealth”.

Via BBC Technology and L’Expansion. Read also this morning edition of Le Monde.