The Year 2000 Information Campaign WEBSITE series, first captured via File Transfer Protocol in October 2000 includes the entire contents of the Year 2000 Information Campaign website. The WEBSITE series includes 71 HTML files, 8 PowerPoint files, 11 Microsoft Word files, and 5 GIF files. The website target audience was University of Michigan units. The website includes information to assist units in understanding what the Year 2000 problem consisted of and provided individual units with a methodology for the assessment of their information systems. The series consists of four subseries: University of Michigan Year 2000 Activities, University of Michigan Unit Action, University of Michigan Year 2000 Working Groups, and Year 2000 Announcements. As noted in the access requirements section, the origin directory structure of the website was maintained. When accessing a subseries however, note that the original structure was essentially flat.
The Year 2000 Information Campaign was formed as part of the university's concern and overall plan to insure that the information systems used on campus would not be effected by the "Millennium Bug." The Millennium Bug or the "Year 2000 Problem" (Y2K) referred to administrative systems designed circa 1970s. Disk storage space was considered expensive at this time and was a factor in the design of systems. As a way to decrease the amount of storage space used, programmers limited the date field to a two digit field instead of a four digit field. For example, the date 1966, would be expressed as 66. Y2K concerns centered on what would happen on January 1, 2000 when the two digit date 00 would be interpreted in non-compliant systems as 1900 rather than 2000. The Year 2000 concern focused in particular on systems that relied on the date field for calculations and other business transactions. The university itself depended on numerous computer based systems for it's daily operations. These systems ranged from systems designed for building security, heating and cooling, and elevator maintenance to systems designed for financial transactions.
In October 1997 the Regents requested that the university identify and measure the potential impact of the Year 2000 problem. Executive Officers Nancy Cantor, Robert Kasdin, and Gilbert Omenn, charged Jose Marie-Griffiths (University Chief Information Officer and Executive Director), Robert Moenart (Controller), Laura Patterson (M-Pathways Project Director), and Glenna Schweitzer, (Director of Budget Administration) to this task.
The university undertook a comprehensive managed approach to identifying systems, software, and vendors that may not be Year 2000 complaint. The university either replaced or upgraded those systems that were judged likely to fail in the Year 2000. In addition to insuring the operational integrity of the systems, the university also formed a Year 2000 Information Campaign as an effort to raise the awareness of the problem on campus and to communicate the progress the university made towards the Year 2000 Problem. Gloria Thiele acted as the Project Coordinator for the Year 2000 Information Campaign under the direction of Jose Marie-Griffiths.
Due to the nature of web disseminated information, it was deemed necessary to make a decision regarding the hypertext links contained in the site. It was decided to accession all files within the Year 2000 Information Campaign original source URL http://www.Year2000.umich.edu. It was, however, decided not to accession the contents of external links pointing to websites located outside of the Year 2000 domain. Reference to all source URLs remain in the structure of the document if a researcher wishes to examine a particular website. A researcher needs to keep in mind however, when viewing URLs not preserved as part of the Year 2000 Information Campaign that those external links may no longer exist or the contents of the site may have changed substantially since the time that this website was archived.
In an effort to differentiate the inactive, archived website from a website that may continue to be "active," the archivist has inserted into each of the HTML files a limited amount of coding for the purpose of explaining and marking the site as an "archived website." The language contained within the HTML table tags reads: "The website you are viewing is an archival website. The website was archived by the Bentley Historical Library in October 2000. Please see the Bentley Library finding aid for more information about this website or contact the Reference staff at 734.764.3482."
