How does limited access to historical data

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Any recent examples of when you’ve found the Internet Archive particularly useful?

I use the search tool on closed captioning more than anything else. The other day I was trying to find an old copy of a webpage. I was writing about Donald Trump’s comments on Medal of Honor recipients. As it turns out, there is not an immediately accessible resource for when Medals of Honor were granted to members of the military. You can see aggregated—how many there are—but you can’t see who was given a medal and when they served. I actually used the Internet Archive to see how the metrics changed between the beginning of Trump’s presidency and by the end of it. I was able to see that there were medals awarded to about 11 people who served during the War on Terror, three who served in Vietnam, and one during World War II. Then, I was able to go back and double check against the Trump White House archive, which is done by the National Archives, and see the people to whom he had given special database award. That’s a good example of being able to take those two snapshots in time and then compare them in order to see what the difference was to get this problem solved.

Why is it important for the public to have free public access to an archive of the news for television or print?

or previous coverage impact you as a journalist?


Anything you’d like to add?






About the author

Peter Scholing is a digital librarian, researcher and information scientist working for Biblioteca Nacional Aruba, Aruba’s National Library. He currently serves as the President of MoWLAC, the Regional Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean for UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme for Documentary Heritage. In 2024, he was awarded the “Caribbean Information Professional of the Year” award by ACURIL, the Caribbean Library Association. His main project, Coleccion Aruba, the Aruba Digital Collection, is the recipient of this year’s Internet Archive Hero Award.

In today’s digital landscape, corporate interests, shifting distribution models, and malicious cyber attacks are threatening public access to our shared cultural history.