Yesterday I received word from the Dutch Royal Library that this weblog will be included in their digital archives from now on.
The Dutch Royal Library started archiving selected websites in 2007. At one point, years ago, they had a pilot project to include a range of Dutch weblogs. My blog fell outside their scope of perception then, because I write mostly in English, and because my site lives on a .org domain, not a .nl domain. When this blog started it wasn’t possible for individuals to register .nl domains, you had to be registered as a company for that.

Last September I attended a session at the Royal Library in The Hague, where also Brewster Kahle presented the European efforts of the Internet Archive, and the collaboration between these two organisations was discussed. There I learned that in order to be considered for archiving I could now actually submit a request to be considered. Which I did. With their decision now taken.

Currently the Dutch Royal Library archives some 25.000 websites, out of the 10 million or so existing websites in the Netherlands, i.o.w. just a quarter of 1 percent.
My blog is probably one of a small number of personal blogs in the Netherlands that has resided on the same URL this long (23 years) and is still active. Other bloggers from way back when and before I started, like Frank Meeuwsen, have switched domain names several times over the years. Frank’s blog has been included in the archive since 2018.

Conservation in the digital archive is not a recognition, as the Royal Library aims to preserve a representative subset for future research purposes. A recent wave of additions covered e.g. all kinds of web initiatives from during the pandemic, preserving a window on that period.
It is however a way of shaping digital longevity, something I mentioned here some years ago. Then I suggested submitting collections of postings as books with their own ISBN numbers. That still is a good route I think. Being part of the digital archive is definitely a step towards digital longevity too.
I do like that my site is now included in the archives of the Dutch Royal Library.