Since 2021, I have been collecting and digitizing “Internet directory” books—print reference books from the late 1990s and early 2000s that list web page URLs in hierarchical categories with descriptions written by human curators. Often marketed as "yellow pages" or "handbooks" for the Internet, these books were a common sight in bookstores around the world in the 1990s and early 2000s.
I initially focused on Chinese and English directories but later expanded my scope to include Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Spanish directories as well. Although most URLs in these books are no longer accessible, the books are a great resource for researchers today to study the early web.
I have built a simple web interface to browse parts of the digitized collection at dir.pastinter.net. The web interface is accessible to the public, and I am planning to making the raw data available for download on request.
