1. MuseumNext
Project: re:DDS, WebArcheology
Amsterdam Museum, Tjarda de Haan
International debate Museu Picasso,
May, 23th 2012

2. Project re:DDS
Amsterdam Museum:
• The story of Amsterdam – your entry to the city!
• Formerly known as the Amsterdam Historical Museum.
Digital collections:
• Web: corporate site, co-creation platform.
• Social: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr.
• Mobile: Collection App, MuseumApp.
• Semantic & Open Data: online collection, Europeana, Apps for Amsterdam,
Wikipedia.

3. Project re:DDS
Help! Our digital heritage is getting lost!
• UNESCO wrote ‘Charter on the preservation of the digital heritage’ (2003):
• “The world’s digital heritage is at risk of being lost.”
• “It’s preservation is an urgent issue of worldwide concern.”
Complexity of (born-)digital material:
• Rapid obsolescence of the hardware and software (technology, longevity,
durability, compatibility), linkrot, lost documents.
• Uncertainties about resources, responsibility and methods for maintenance and
preservation.
• Lack of supportive legislation.

4. Project re:DDS
What is De Digitale Stad - The Digital City (1994-2001)?
• 1st (free) public domain virtual city in the world.
• 1st Dutch virtual community.
• Grounded by a fluid group: independent media, hackers and the municipality of Amsterdam.
• Inspired by the Free-Nets movement in the US and Canada.
• Attracted international interest for the design: metaphor of a city to structure cyberspace.
• Good for the cyberreputation of the city of Amsterdam:
• CNN (1997): “For hundreds of years the city of Amsterdam has been a center of
commercial trade, art and education. Now it’s helping point the way in the information
revolution too.”
• Manuel Castells (The Internet Galaxy, 2001): “The most famous citizen computer
network. (…) A new form of public sphere combining local institutions, grassroots
organisations, and computer networks in the development of cultural expression and
civic participation.”
• Inhabitants (the users): 1994: 10.000 - 1997: 60.000 - 1998: 80.000 - 2000: 140.000.

5. Project re:DDS
Goals of the project re:DDS (REconstruction of De Digitale Stad):
• To preserve the internet-historical monument DDS.
• To map the history of the DDS, internet and e-culture in Amsterdam.
• To include the DDS in the collections of the heritage institutions.
• And… a pilot for net-archeology: how to reconstruct, preserve and retrieve the
virtual city DDS (DDS is born-digital) and make it accessible to the public, on a
scientific and social level.

6. Project re:DDS
What do we do?
‘Information Research & Data Recovery’:
Phases of the project:
1. Start:
• Launch of Open History Lab: re:DDS.nl.
2. Digg:
•The Grave Diggers Party.
• Crowdsourcing in Open History Lab.
3. Analyse & reconstruction:
• The Rise of Zombies: crowdsourcing & co-creation.
• Flight of Zombies: DDS in ‘multiple-points-in-times’?
4. Delivery for collections and presentations:
• Let the Bytes Free!
5. Finish project:
• Conclusions, evaluation, documentation, knowledge sharing.

7. Project re:DDS
Grave Diggers Party, Friday the 13th (May 2011)
1. Working space  The Archeological Site re:DDS
• Workstations:
• Bring and upload your code.
• Digg in the Wayback Machine and store excavations in Historical (e-)Depot.
• Share your stories and memories in the Open History Lab re:DDS.nl.
• Tools:
• Computers: excavators.
• Storage: buckets.
• UNIX commands, mice: pades, pick-axe, trowels.
• Scripts : metal detectors.
• USB: find bags.
• Metadata: find cards.
2. Museum space  Tourist Tours
• /Lost+found: ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’:
• Hardware: servers, terminals, modembanks, taperobots etc.
• Screenshots of DDS.
• Billboard’s:
• What is DDS? Where are you? What is this site? Why this site?

8. Project re:DDS
/lost+found:

9. Project re:DDS
Will we succeed? 
• Exposition at the Amsterdam Museum: to present the story of the internet-historical
monument DDS and history of the internet and e-culture in Amsterdam?
• ‘DDS timemachine’ for visitors: interact with history and experience the ‘multiple-points-in-
times’ of DDS: 'How was the internet at the beginning?‘ and ‘How did it look like in the 20th
century?’
• Playground for researchers: browse between the ‘multiple-points-in-times’ of DDS, and
research the evolution of the web in a 4D collection (height, width, depth and… time)?
• DDS in the collections of the heritage institutions?
• Share knowlegde: DIY Manual for WebArcheology: how to reconstruct, preserve and
retrieve born-digital material and make it accessible to the public?
DDS1.0 - Jan, 15th of 1994
DDS3.0 - June, 10th of 1995
DDS2.0 - Oct, 1st of 1994

10. Thanks to:
Project re:DDS
Our partners:
• De Digitale Stad Holding BV.
• The International Institute of Social History (IISH).
• Karin Spaink, independent researcher.
• The Koninklijke Bibliotheek (National Library of the Netherlands).
• The Amsterdam City Archives.
• The Waag Society.
• Old inhabitants, (ex) DDS employees and DDS affined webarcheologists.
And:
• Guidelines for the Preservating of Digital Heritage (March 2003)
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001300/130071e.pdf.
• IIPC: Web Archives: The Future(s), by Eric T. Meyer, Arthur Thomas, Ralph Schroeder
(2011, University of Oxford)
http://netpreserve.org/events/Hague/Presentations/OII-IIPC.pdf.
• Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage: UNESCO
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=17721&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
.
• Talk to the hand by Swamibu - http://www.flickr.com/photos/swamibu/3052879559/ .
• And more: http://www.delicious.com/re_dds/.
Contact: T.deHaan@amsterdammuseum.nl