Have you ever wondered about past libraries throughout global history, which have been destroyed either by accident or malicious intent, and in turn losing valuable knowledge transcribed on books and texts?  

Well, today the physical libraries are not the only knowledge centres at risk of losing valuable human records in understanding the world we live in. Our digital history via the internet could be facing a black hole of being lost forever. Recently the Internet Archive experienced a cyber attack from hackers... sparking fears on the potential worst case scenario.

So why is this happening? And what are we doing to protect our past? To discuss the importance of digital archives, 4ZZZ's Toni Pankaluic spoke with Professor George Buchanan, Deputy Dean of Research at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University's School of Computing Technologies to learn more about the cyberattack as well as digital preservation currently happening for the future.

For a deep dive...

To gain a basic understanding of what is the Internet Archive and it's Wayback Machine... click the hyperlinks. Digital preservation is of vital importance in keeping data and files accessible, learn why it is important in saving our internet history. The United States' Library of Congress is an example of another organisation engaging in digital preservation of records and information.