It's August 6, Happy Web Day

The Plaza
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Someone sent an email message on this day in 1991 that had a lasting impact some 35 years later. Via a social media post from the W3Consortium we celebrate Tim Berners-Lee’s message about the WorldWideWeb project with a simple request to “Try it”

historic image of Tim Berners-Lee at CERN. Text: "Try it." Sir Tim Berners-Lee introducing the web to the world, 6 August 1991"
historic image of Tim Berners-Lee at CERN. Text: "Try it." Sir Tim Berners-Lee introducing the web to the world, 6 August 1991"1024×512 72.4 KB

And in 2026 you can read the archived copy of that historic email message including:

The WWW project merges the techniques of information retrieval and hypertext to
make an easy but powerful global information system.

The project started with the philosophy that much academic information should
be freely available to anyone. It aims to allow information sharing within
internationally dispersed teams, and the dissemination of information by
support groups.

It’s also noteworthy that the link for initial documentation is still an active one http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

So if the message for the World Wide Web in 1991 was “Try It” what is the call in 2026 to sustain TBL’s philosophy for academic information being
freely available to anyone?

Happy web day!

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The message is still ‘try it’. So many academics are still indifferent to (or even hostile to) open access.

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Well it only took like 40 million years for the Rocky Mountains to form…

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“Try it” was the call in 1991.
In 2026, perhaps our call should be: Make it open. Make it accessible. Make it sustainable.
From Sudan, we have learned that open knowledge is not a luxury. In times of crisis, it can become a lifeline — connecting learners, researchers, and communities when physical access to knowledge is disrupted.
The challenge today is not only to keep the Web alive, but to keep its original spirit alive: knowledge freely available to anyone, anywhere.
Happy Web Day! :globe_showing_europe_africa::light_bulb:

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