CERN to Celebrate 30th Anniversary of the Invention of the World Wide Web with a Special Day on March 12th
From CERN:
Thirty years ago, a young computer expert working at CERN combined ideas about accessing information with a desire for broad connectivity and openness. His proposal became the World Wide Web. CERN is celebrating the 30th anniversary of this revolutionary invention with a special day on 12 March.
In March 1989, while working at CERN, Sir Tim Berners-Lee wrote his first proposal for an internet-based hypertext system to link and access information across different computers. In November 1990, this “web of information nodes in which the user can browse at will” was formalised as a proposal, “WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a HyperText Project”, by Berners-Lee, together with a CERN colleague, Robert Cailliau. By Christmas that year, Berners-Lee had implemented key components, namely html, http and URL, and created the first Web server, browser and editor (WorldWideWeb).
On 30 April 1993, CERN released the latest version of the WWW software into the public domain and made it freely available for anyone to use and improve. This decision encouraged the use of the Web, and society to benefit from it: half of the world’s population is now online, and close to 2 billion websites exist. Openness has been endemic to CERN’s culture ever since its Convention was signed in 1953. CERN promotes the distribution and open sharing of software, technology, publications and data, through initiatives such as open source software, open hardware, open access publishing and the CERN Open Data Portal.
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On the morning of 12 March, the Web@30 event at CERN will kick off celebrations around the world. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Robert Cailliau and other Web pioneers and experts will share their views on the challenges and opportunities brought by the Web. The event will be opened by Fabiola Gianotti, CERN’s Director-General, and is being organised by CERN in collaboration with two organisations founded by Berners-Lee: the World Wide Web Foundation and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
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Additional Web History Resources (via CERN):
• Web@30 website
• The birth of the web
• History of the web timeline
• History of the CERN Web Software Public Releases
• Licensing the web
• Information Management: A Proposal (Sir Tim Berners-Lee, March 1989, May 1990)
• Collection of photos and videos about the web
• History of the web video: YouTube, HD, high-res
• My web 30 YouTube playlist
Filed under: Data Files, Management and Leadership, News, Open Access, Publishing, Video Recordings
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.
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