to print or save the
website for future reading. Weeks later, when
we went back to reread
the obit, we received
a 404 error: the page
was already missing.
Just six months after
this Olympic medalist died, his obit went
missing! Lambert’s obit
had the typical lifespan of a webpage: 10
months.1 Factors that
may contribute to rela-
tively short lifespans of
websites are dynamic
URLs, companies which
stop supporting a blog
or publishing platform
and fragmentation of
h a r d wa r e / s o f t wa r e .
The speed in which
websites appear or disappear is so dynamic that the Modern
Language Association
has changed their criteria for a bibliography. Much of their reasoning stems from the
short life-span of webpages. MLA no longer
requires a URL for text
cited from a webpage.
Author, the company
publishing the material, the format for the
publication, date published along with the
volume and issue numbers are the recommended way to cite a
digital material.
40
Athletes like George
Lambert can’t guarantee themselves a legacy because of their
greatness. Sports publishers and media bosses will have to make
sure a story of a life
is truthfully preserved
through the years. On
the other hand, a fun
example of an athlete who built a lasting legacy was Johnny
Weissmuller, one of
the best competitive
swimmers of the 20th
century. Weissmuller’s
name is recognized by
many swimmers, but
for the majority of the
public it’s the character from the movie
Tarzan of the Apes
for which he is most
well known. Tarzan
has been described
as one of the bestknown literary characters in the world.2 Even
though the copyright
for the movie expired