The Digital City (DDS), which was founded in Amsterdam in the 1990s, has been included in the register by Unesco Memory of the World. With this list, Unesco draws attention to the preservation of documentary heritage.
The Digital City was one of the four Dutch entries. DDS was founded almost thirty years ago in Amsterdam by initiator Marleen Stikker, who immediately became mayor of the virtual city. DDS was one of the first online communities in the world and was supposed to make the internet accessible to everyone.
On the platform, users could talk to each other in chat rooms and participate in online activities. You also found the town hall, a post office (for e-mails) and the library. People could access the internet via the Central Station. The impact was huge: after six weeks, the virtual city already had more than ten thousand inhabitants.
Aging hardware and software
There are now a total of seventeen Dutch heirlooms, including Anne Frank’s diary, among more than five hundred items in the list. ”The Digital City inspired many other networks worldwide,” can be read in the nomination.
Never before has a complete digital heritage been included in the register. But that is important, according to the compilers of the heritage list. A large part of the digital heritage is in danger of being lost due to the rapid obsolescence of hardware and software. With DDS now officially included in the registry, future generations will be able to experience and explore those early, early, experimental days of the Internet, according to UNESCO.