5 ms·
>Ever tried to look up some news from 12 years ago? Internet Archive which is a lot easier to search in than going manually through microfilm.
by marcinzm 4y ago
>Ever tried to look up some news from 12 years ago?
Internet Archive which is a lot easier to search in than going manually through microfilm.
- izacus 4y agoExcept that people on this very sight are fighting very very hard to ban scraping from sites like Internet Archive and keep propping up IP laws that make such libraries illegal.
- dredmorbius 4y agoOne reason Archive.Today is far more frequently used and referenced on HN and elsewhere, including by myself, is that it provides actual useful site access in many, many cases where the Internet Archive does not. I'm a big fan of the Internet Archive and its mission. I'm concerned over Archive Today's severe lack of transparency (I've had a few exchanges with the site's operators, I've no idea who they are or what their motives are). I find the site useful but troubling. I've also conducted microfilm (and -fiche) searches, as well as cataloguing of same. One affordance of a microform archive is that it is indexed, in ways that many online archives, including The Internet Archive ... aren't, usefully. The exchange is one of access-from-anywhere (yes, useful) against usable search and curation. It's ... an uncomfortable trade-off. (The history of usefully cataloguing and indexing archives is itself a very old one. The US Librarian of Congress's annual letters to Congress, available through the otherwise almost wholly useless Hathi Trust, though, come to think of it, downloads of the entire letter rather than one single page at a time require using a different service ... are one interesting view to that process and the creation of the Library of Congress Classification and Subject Headings.)