PANDORA, or Pandora, is a national web archive for the preservation of Australia's online publications. Established by the National Library of Australia in 1996, it has been built in collaboration with Australian state libraries and cultural collecting organisations, including the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, the Australian War Memorial, and the National Film and Sound Archive. It is now one of three components of the Australian Web Archive. The name, PANDORA, is a bacronym which describes its purpose: Preserving and Accessing Networked Documentary Resources of Australia. History The National Library of Australia (NLA) began selecting suitable online publications at the beginning of 1996, after recognising "the need to preserve Australia's documentary heritage in online formats as well as in the traditional formats of its existing collections". After investigating the landscape of "Australian electronic publications" between 1993 and 1996, staff (initially four) were committed to the PANDORA program. Following a six-month period of testing and experimentation, the NLA committed to collecting materials in online formats. A system to store, manage and provide access to these online publications was built by the NLA, which includes PANDORA, a set of policies and procedures and a technical infrastructure. The first two titles were downloaded in October 1996. By June 1997 the archive contained 31 titles. With the sheer volume of content that needed archiving, it was essential to collaborate with other organisations, and in 1998 the State Library of Victoria came on board. By 2000, 600 titles had been archived, at which time the website was redesigned. The new site added subject-level access to titles and included documents relating to the PANDORA project. In August 1998 the State Library of Victoria became a participant in adding content. In 2000, ScreenSound Australia (now National Film and Sound Archive) joined as a collaborating partner. By 2003, all of the mainland State libraries, the Northern Territory Library, the National Film and Sound Archive, the Australian War Memorial and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) had become participants. The State Library of Tasmania has not participated in PANDORA, at the time of inception running its own web archiving project called Our Digital Island. Description Selection criteria The PANDORA archive collects certain Australian web resources according to a specified selection policy, preserves them, and makes them available for viewing. Content must be about Australia, and is selected based on its