4 ms·

Historically, yes. Today? No. The internet has, in many ways, supplanted it. And where Libraries are hobbled by following the laws, the internet community has f

Historically, yes. Today? No. The internet has, in many ways, supplanted it. And where Libraries are hobbled by following the laws, the internet community has found ways around this particular damage. And that's cool. Now then, should Libraries be getting shafted like this? Fuck no. Can any actions I take - short of running for office and making my way up to the federal government in charge of interstate commerce - effect that? Also, sadly, no. I will continue to support librarians seeking change while facing reality.

wizzwizz4 4y ago
> The internet has, in many ways, supplanted it. The internet is big and sprawling. It's easy to prune, by accident or malice. Think of how much of the web goes through Cloudflare! Think of how much we rely on the Internet Archive; if that went down, where would we be? Libraries, on the other hand, are decentralised, redundant, curated, indexed, and maintained against both bitrot and link rot. We could make the internet like this. In fact, there are organisations that do so! But there's a reason so many of those organisations call themselves libraries.
- jamiek88 4y ago
  Great point about if the internet archive went down. Every single one of us on this site unless in poverty should consider donating to the IA. I’ve just changed my monthly donation from Wikipedia to IA.
  - wizzwizz4 4y ago
    Supporting the Internet Archive is very much worth doing – but we also need a parallel effort to archive the Internet Archive. There are other ways for it to go down than just "we ran out of money". (Then again, I don't know that a parallel effort exists; Archive Team were doing one a few years back, but I think that's stopped. So donating to IA is still your best bet, here.)
Retric 4y ago
The internet is insanely prone to losing stuff. What percentage of the first 10,000 YouTube videos from 2005 do you think are still accessible? With copyright and account issues etc issues I would be surprised if it broke 20% and that’s for a website that’s still around. You can find old stuff due to internet archive and that’s about it. Making the internet basically a giant single point of failure in practice.
- chmod775 4y ago
  > With copyright and account issues etc issues I would be surprised if it broke 20% and that’s for a website that’s still around. On YouTube there are around 20 different labels claiming to own the copyright to a recording of the Red Army Choir singing the Soviet national anthem more than 50 years ago. UMG has already decided you're not allowed to embed it on some other sites. Additionally, due to licensing issues, music "owned" by certain labels hasn't been/is not available in the certain countries.
- zarzavat 4y ago
  Okay but the internet’s library of books specifically is libgen, and that is mirrored to a high degree of redundancy.
  - remram 4y ago
    "Lib" in "LibGen" stands for "library" so "Libraries are how humanity at large preserves documents" holds.
- anthk 4y ago
  I remember an old webpage, the Spanish speaking clone for Slashdot, Barrapunto. They turned down the servers because they had no visits compared to Menéame, a Reddit clone for Spaniards. Now you just have a few pieces at the Wayback Machine and that's it. Now, tell me the digital wankers how much the digital preservation is compared to the books. Even if they used NNTP, I think not the whole archive would be preserved, just ask Jason Scott. And I love computers, I use OpenBSD and CWM on a netbook. But current media preservation efforts are ridiculous compared to a simple book from the 70's.

wizzwizz4 4y ago

> The internet has, in many ways, supplanted it. The internet is big and sprawling. It's easy to prune, by accident or malice. Think of how much of the web goes through Cloudflare! Think of how much we rely on the Internet Archive; if that went down, where would we be? Libraries, on the other hand, are decentralised, redundant, curated, indexed, and maintained against both bitrot and link rot. We could make the internet like this. In fact, there are organisations that do so! But there's a reason so many of those organisations call themselves libraries.

jamiek88 4y ago
Great point about if the internet archive went down. Every single one of us on this site unless in poverty should consider donating to the IA. I’ve just changed my monthly donation from Wikipedia to IA.
- wizzwizz4 4y ago
  Supporting the Internet Archive is very much worth doing – but we also need a parallel effort to archive the Internet Archive. There are other ways for it to go down than just "we ran out of money". (Then again, I don't know that a parallel effort exists; Archive Team were doing one a few years back, but I think that's stopped. So donating to IA is still your best bet, here.)

Retric 4y ago

The internet is insanely prone to losing stuff. What percentage of the first 10,000 YouTube videos from 2005 do you think are still accessible? With copyright and account issues etc issues I would be surprised if it broke 20% and that’s for a website that’s still around. You can find old stuff due to internet archive and that’s about it. Making the internet basically a giant single point of failure in practice.

chmod775 4y ago
> With copyright and account issues etc issues I would be surprised if it broke 20% and that’s for a website that’s still around. On YouTube there are around 20 different labels claiming to own the copyright to a recording of the Red Army Choir singing the Soviet national anthem more than 50 years ago. UMG has already decided you're not allowed to embed it on some other sites. Additionally, due to licensing issues, music "owned" by certain labels hasn't been/is not available in the certain countries.
zarzavat 4y ago
Okay but the internet’s library of books specifically is libgen, and that is mirrored to a high degree of redundancy.
- remram 4y ago
  "Lib" in "LibGen" stands for "library" so "Libraries are how humanity at large preserves documents" holds.
anthk 4y ago
I remember an old webpage, the Spanish speaking clone for Slashdot, Barrapunto. They turned down the servers because they had no visits compared to Menéame, a Reddit clone for Spaniards. Now you just have a few pieces at the Wayback Machine and that's it. Now, tell me the digital wankers how much the digital preservation is compared to the books. Even if they used NNTP, I think not the whole archive would be preserved, just ask Jason Scott. And I love computers, I use OpenBSD and CWM on a netbook. But current media preservation efforts are ridiculous compared to a simple book from the 70's.