| ibiblio | |
| Commercial: | No |
| Type: | Digital library and archive |
| Language: | Multilingual, but predominately English |
| Registration: | Optional |
| Owner: | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| Author: | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Sun Microsystems |
| Current Status: | Online |
ibiblio (formerly SunSITE.unc.edu and MetaLab.unc.edu[1]) is a "collection of collections", and hosts a diverse range of publicly available information and open source content, including software, music, literature, art, history, science, politics, and cultural studies. As an "Internet librarianship", ibiblio is a digital library and archive project. It is run by the School of Information and Library Science and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with partners including the Center for the Public Domain, IBM, and SourceForge.[2] It also offers streaming audio radio stations. In November 1994 it started the first internet radio stream by rebroadcasting WXYC, the UNC student-run radio station. It also takes credit for the first non-commercial IPv6 / Internet2 radio stream. Unless otherwise specified, all material on ibiblio is assumed to be[3] in the public domain.
ibiblio is a member of the Open Library and Open Content Alliance.
In 1992, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill developed SunSITE.unc.edu, which was to be an archive and an information sharing project for the public. It was funded by grants from Sun Microsystems, and thus the name. The relationship with Sun came to an end (an amicable one, according to the ibiblio FAQ; the change in name was for a "vendor-neutral name that expressed what our project has evolved into over the years"[4]) and the name was changed to MetaLab. It collaborated with various sources, including academic institutions, corporations, and information technology entrepreneurs.
Also in 1992, sunsite.unc.edu became one of the first web sites on the internet. Today, it is still the host for a copy of the oldest web page known in history.[5]
In September 2000, MetaLab began to collaborate with the Center for the Public Domain; the name was changed to ibiblio to reflect the goal of being "the public's library and digital archive".
| 2002[6] | 2006 | 2008[7] | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Collections | 800 | 1600+ | 2500+ | |
| Visits (ftp+www/day) | 3 million | 15+ million | 16+ million | |
| Data (terabytes) | 1 | 8 | 13 | |
| Web servers | 1 large, 2 peripherals | 22 www/vhosts | 25 www/vhost servers | |
| Database servers | 2 | 5 | 7 | |
| Radio stations | 4 | 7 | 6 |