New Hampshire’s more recent history includes its presence on the web.
One of the earliest web sites to offer information about New Hampshire, was none other than our state’s official government site. From humble beginnings it has evolved into an excellent source of “everything New Hampshire.”
But how do we see what the web site looked like during its infancy? A nifty site called the WaybackMachine, allows you to take a peek into the past, and “browse through 55 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago.” All you need to start is the URL or web site address.
New Hampshire’s official state web site actually has had at least two web addresses during its lifetime. The first one is http://www.state.nh.us and July 14, 1997 is the earliest date when a copy of the site is available. It continued there until April 1, 2005, and you can still access the current site using that url.
The second and current web address, www.nh.gov, was available from 2002 through today.
At first, our state’s official web site was called the “Webster,” (honoring our famous statesman, Daniel Webster) until shortly after February 2003. Then, under Governor Craig Bensen’s administration, the reference to “Webster” was removed and it was simply called “New Hampshire State Government Online.”
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A second New Hampshire web site of interest is our official “tourist” or vacation site maintained by the New Hampshire Division of Travel and Tourism Development at http://www.visitnh.gov/ The site includes welcoming messages in various languages, along with a message from our Governor.
I personally find the current site of little value, as it is too convoluted, and difficult to maneuver. A well-created site would allow you to type a town or city (such as Concord) on the search prompt line, and return with more than a crappy list of links, and a few hotels… ugh it definitely needs work. Hint to the webmaster: you have 20 seconds to hold a person’s attention.. you just lost mine.
Actually if you go back to the 1997 version of the web site, as simplistic as it was, it gave you some valuable information at a glance.
Other interesting New Hampshire web sites that have made some dramatic changes since they first appeared on the internet’s horizon, are shown below.
Also, did you know that New Hampshire has its very own Department of NH Information Technology? To read its long range plan, and learn more, visit http://www.nh.gov/oit/internet/
Janice
-NH State Library: Then // Now–
