Internet Archive Wins Webby Lifetime Achievement Award

The non-profit Internet Archive, that has harvested and preserved billions of web pages and made them available for free, has been awarded a Webby Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

The Award was given to the Internet Archive in recognition of:

" ... its unflagging commitment to making the world’s knowledge available online, and preserving the history of the Internet itself. With its vast collection of digitized books, movies, music, and more, Internet Archive is one of the premier sources of information online. Furthermore, through tools like The Wayback Machine, the site is a unique catalog of the history of the Internet itself—a vital resource for such an ever-changing medium. For harnessing the power of the Internet to freely disseminate information and for being the web’s most knowledgeable historian, it’s our great privilege to honor Internet Archive with the Lifetime Achievement Award."

The Webby Awards recognize outstanding achievement in websites, online film and video, mobile and apps, and interactive advertising and media. There are numerous categories, ranging from activism to sports. They are sometimes described as the equivalent of the Oscars, Nobel Prizes or Olympics of the web.

And the tech geeks at the Internet Archive are in some very fine company in 2017.

Among this year’s winners in other catagories are FactCheck.org, Merriam-Webster (for its often cheeky definitions on Twitter), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Game of Thrones, Spotify, Pokémon Go, and Lady Gaga.

The judges received 13,000 entries from 70 countries. 2017 is the 21st year of the Webby Awards.

The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences is an international organization of leading Web experts, business figures, and cultural celebrities.