Two weeks ago the Library of Congress announced that they will be archiving all public tweets since Twitter began. The tweets have been given to the library as a ‘gift’ from Twitter.

The announcement was fittingly made on Twitter.

Yesterday the Library of Congress blog published a list of FAQs abouut the approach they will be taking.

The FAQ explains:

• Why is it important to preserve the Twitter archive?
  It sees Twitter is part of the historical record of communication, news reporting, and social trends – all of which complement the Library’s existing cultural heritage collections.
• What is in the Archive?
  Public information. Not private account information or deleted tweets.
• What does the Library plan to do with the archive?
  Its aims are preserving access to the archive for the long term and making data available to researchers.