Mental Floss http://mentalfloss.com/node/50889/atom.xml 2016-04-30T15:30:03+00:00 http://mentalfloss.com/article/50889/inside-internet-archive 2013-06-01T18:57:52+00:00 2013-06-01T18:57:52+00:00 Inside the Internet Archive Chris Higgins

In a grand old building in San Francisco, an organization dedicates itself to creating universal access to all human knowledge. No, it's not Starfleet -- it's the Internet Archive. Encompassing a variety of different kinds of archives (books, movies, TV shows, audio, the Web), the Internet Archive is a vast library, built for the realities of the modern age. Here's a representative quote from Brewster Kahle, founder of the archive:

"What happens to libraries is they burn. They get burned by governments. That's not a political statement, it's just historically what happens -- the Library of Congress has already burned once. So if that's what happens to libraries, let's design for it."

Want to see inside the Internet Archive (aka archive.org)? Watch this short documentary by Jonathan Minard, and be sure to catch the part around 8 minutes in showing how they digitize books without destroying them.

For the record, the Internet Archive is the reason we have posts like What the Internet Looked Like in 1995; the Archive hosts a collection of the Computer Chronicles TV show. It's all there. It's all free. It's all done by a non-profit team of archivists and librarians. Go check it out, eh?

January 6, 2013 - 2:57pm
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