New Administration, New Website, and Lost Content

I have just wiped away eight years of internets content!

One of the more interesting aspects of the inauguration today was how the website at whitehouse.gov switched over from the Bush administration to the Obama site right around noon. Shortly thereafter folks noticed the drastic contrast in robots.txt files between the two administrations. Some folks are saying this represents a difference in attitudes between the administrations, which may be true, but it’s much more likely a result of a differences in information architecture and the smaller amount of content on Obama’s whitehouse.gov.

However, this highlights something a bit more interesting, when the website was switched over massive amounts of content were immediately rendered obsolete and for most purposes lost. I’d imagine that National Archives has a copy of them, just like they archive email from the executive branch, but that doesn’t make it that easy to get access too. While much of the information on the whitehouse.gov site is partisan banter, there are some elements that are lost – like the Whitehouse Kids page (archive.org link), and Hurricane Katrina pages (not archived).

Given the increased importance of information placed on the web and the importance of a smooth transition of power, shouldn’t some work be done to archive this information? I realize that it may not be possible to continue to provide interactive elements as the system administrators have left, but a static archive would be helpful and also serve as a valuable resource for folks looking back at previous presidencies.