The DPC offices were closed for the Christmas break between lunchtime on 23rd December 2010 and 4th January 2011. During that time, followers of the DPC on Twitter were sent links to 12 different websites which contained different types of freely available digital resources that in some sense captured the the modern festive season. This was not intended to be serious: but given the mission of te DPC it will be interesting to find out if these same resources can be accessed again in Christmas 2011. Each link has some claim to lasting value but we are not necessarily advocating that they should be maintained in the same place and in the same format: we invite readers to decide whether they think these are important enough to be saved for posterity. But each one has some specific technical characteristic so, as a set, they represent different technical and organisational challenges for web archiving - challenges to ensuring that our digitial memory is accessible tomorrow.
The list of resources is as follows:
1. O Magnum Mysterium by Morten Laurisden, as recorded by the Nordic Chamber Choir in around 2008. (A video from YouTube online at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn5ken3RJBo&feature=youtu.be)
2. NORAD's explanation of why they track Santa. (A confomant HTML5 web page http://www.noradsanta.org/en/whytrack.html)
3. The text of the Queen's Christmas Broadcast for 2010. (A non conformant XHTML1.0 page presented via Active Server Pages: http://www.royal.gov.uk/ImagesandBroadcasts/TheQueensChristmasBroadcasts/ChristmasBroadcasts/ChristmasBroadcast2010.aspx
4. A recipe for mince pies from the online forum of the Grow Your Own Magazine. (A non-conformant XHTML 1.0 page produced using a forum management tool called vBulletin http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/grapevine/season-taste/no-added-sugar-lower-fat-mincemeat-recipe-ideal-diabetics_23211.html)
5. An article from the Guardian listing the most top ten most popular toys for Christmas 2010 (A non-conformant HTML 4.01 rendered through a mobile profile to a Blackberry: http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gnm/op/s12ymWzGydp1_ev4Q2pP53Q/view.m?id=15&gid=/lifeandstyle/gallery/2010/jul/01/top-10-toys-christmas-2010&cat=lifeandstyle&image=1)
6. A sample script for a performance of Sinbad the Sailor as a pantomime written by JS Beeteson in 2002 (A self extracting zip file containing a PDF version 1.2, originally created from Word using PDFfactory Pro: http://www.e-pantos.co.uk/sbd_sample_n6.exe - warning this is an executable file.)
7. A blog post reviewing the 2010 Dr Who Christmas special. (A non conformant XHTML1.0 which uses Disqus software to gather and publish comments from readers: http://tvovermind.zap2it.com/cable/bbc-america/doctor-who-tv-news/doctor-christmas-carol-review/42917
8. A photograph of Glasgow in December. (An image from FLICKR: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fordtotti/5226438387/)
9. The listing for the Hogmanay Party in George Square in Glasgow. (A non-conformant XHTML1.0 page with non-conformant syle sheets: http://glasgowloveschristmas.com/?page=hogmanay-acts)
10. The New Years' Honours List 2011. (A PDF version 1.6 created using Acrobat Distiller 7: http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/documents/digitalasset/dg_193438.pdf)
11. Advice about when to take down your Christmas decorations. (From WikiAnswers - notice the answer directly at: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/When_should_you_take_down_your_Christmas_tree_and_decorations and the whol edit history at: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Special:Changes&cv=question:When_should_you_take_down_your_Christmas_tree_and_decorations
12.Monthly readings from the Met Office's Braemar weather station. (Text file: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/stationdata/braemardata.txt)