3 ms·

This thing we're doing where we centrally host everything as opposed to creating a bunch of physical copies, it's going to come back to bite us and relying on t

This thing we're doing where we centrally host everything as opposed to creating a bunch of physical copies, it's going to come back to bite us and relying on the internet archive as the global backup isn't a great solution

adastra22 3y ago
Aren’t there librarians archiving these things too?
- smaudet 3y ago
  Nope. Libraries are archiving physical stuff. Digital stuff is pretty hit-or-miss. Worse, digital stuff is owned by a monopoly that's actively making it harder to find or get anything online, when it is made available to libraries at all. Add on top the problem with DRM - if there are no physical libraries (bad idea) suddenly, how many libraries should there be? Who gets to make that decision? DRM is predicated on not letting everyone get a copy, but this flies directly in the face of the point of libraries, where everyone may share a copy. You either can have infinite libraries in which case DRM is redundant and should be removed, or you can only have very few, in which case DRM is literally nothing other than a tool of oppression, and should be removed (by executing by firing squad the cranks hoisting their vision of a only-rich-people-get-stuff world). There are ways in this post-physical copy world of making sure creators get paid still, but lets just say, the incentives are just not there.
  - adastra22 3y ago
    https://guides.loc.gov/current-periodicals/digital-collections https://guides.loc.gov/current-periodicals/digital-collectio... The library of Congress is exempted from most (all?) DRM restrictions.
    - smaudet 3y ago
      Doesn't mean they have accessible stuff, or are actually even archiving it: https://www.loc.gov/search/?fa=original-format:software,+e-resource&q=Halo+Combat+Evolved https://www.loc.gov/search/?fa=original-format:software,+e-r...
      - adastra22 3y ago
        Hopefully they are at least archiving it. I know the library of congress takes their role in doing this seriously. A lot of the DRM protected stuff is not made generally available, but it is archived for future use.
  - capnrefsmmat 3y ago
    Incorrect: libraries are indeed archiving scholarly journals like the ACM ones, even when they are online-only. For instance, CLOCKSS: https://clockss.org/ https://clockss.org/ Essentially, CLOCKSS member libraries operate scrapers to download and archive copies of all covered journals. If a journal publisher disappears or deletes its back issues, the CLOCKSS members have agreements allowing them to republish the contents. So there are a bunch of academic libraries holding copies of the content of academic journals for long-term preservatino.
alanfranz 3y ago
For Communications, you get a PDF without DRM as well. But yeah, probably most people won’t archive them. At the same time even if just one person archives them, it’s extra easy to copy them worldwide if something bad happens to the original source. Not an extra hard problem , but lots of misaligned incentives.
- kristopolous 3y ago
  It's not about what we value today inasmuch as what we will value tomorrow. We're doing a good job at digitizing the past. The next thing we have to do is analog the future. Books can be forgotten for 750 years and still work. I'm not so sure about hard drives.
ironmagma 3y ago
It's for this reason I am creating my own private engineering and scientific library that I hope to open to the public someday. If only I had a place to host it that wasn't in the middle of hundreds of acres of farmland surrounded by gopher tortoises where no one ever goes.
- kristopolous 3y ago
  Check out californias physical archive catalog: https://oac.cdlib.org/ https://oac.cdlib.org/ - you may find a benefactor there. The arid dryness of California, Nevada and Arizona are great for long term storage. Warehousing things out in the middle of nowhere like death valley or the mojave sounds just tops. It's the stuff that's plentiful now that we don't think about that will eventually become scarce. Think the pile of junk mail you get in your mailbox that you toss in the garbage. Things like cereal boxes from the 1970s go for, well this one recently went for $1,225: https://www.ebay.com/itm/364459062533 https://www.ebay.com/itm/364459062533 ... 12 pack of tab for $225: https://www.ebay.com/itm/374743094689 https://www.ebay.com/itm/374743094689 ... it's the stuff we all think is trash that becomes scarce. Look at 90s CRTs...they're worth thousands

adastra22 3y ago

Aren’t there librarians archiving these things too?

smaudet 3y ago
Nope. Libraries are archiving physical stuff. Digital stuff is pretty hit-or-miss. Worse, digital stuff is owned by a monopoly that's actively making it harder to find or get anything online, when it is made available to libraries at all. Add on top the problem with DRM - if there are no physical libraries (bad idea) suddenly, how many libraries should there be? Who gets to make that decision? DRM is predicated on not letting everyone get a copy, but this flies directly in the face of the point of libraries, where everyone may share a copy. You either can have infinite libraries in which case DRM is redundant and should be removed, or you can only have very few, in which case DRM is literally nothing other than a tool of oppression, and should be removed (by executing by firing squad the cranks hoisting their vision of a only-rich-people-get-stuff world). There are ways in this post-physical copy world of making sure creators get paid still, but lets just say, the incentives are just not there.
- adastra22 3y ago
  https://guides.loc.gov/current-periodicals/digital-collections https://guides.loc.gov/current-periodicals/digital-collectio... The library of Congress is exempted from most (all?) DRM restrictions.
  - smaudet 3y ago
    Doesn't mean they have accessible stuff, or are actually even archiving it: https://www.loc.gov/search/?fa=original-format:software,+e-resource&q=Halo+Combat+Evolved https://www.loc.gov/search/?fa=original-format:software,+e-r...
    - adastra22 3y ago
      Hopefully they are at least archiving it. I know the library of congress takes their role in doing this seriously. A lot of the DRM protected stuff is not made generally available, but it is archived for future use.
- capnrefsmmat 3y ago
  Incorrect: libraries are indeed archiving scholarly journals like the ACM ones, even when they are online-only. For instance, CLOCKSS: https://clockss.org/ https://clockss.org/ Essentially, CLOCKSS member libraries operate scrapers to download and archive copies of all covered journals. If a journal publisher disappears or deletes its back issues, the CLOCKSS members have agreements allowing them to republish the contents. So there are a bunch of academic libraries holding copies of the content of academic journals for long-term preservatino.

alanfranz 3y ago

For Communications, you get a PDF without DRM as well. But yeah, probably most people won’t archive them. At the same time even if just one person archives them, it’s extra easy to copy them worldwide if something bad happens to the original source. Not an extra hard problem , but lots of misaligned incentives.

kristopolous 3y ago
It's not about what we value today inasmuch as what we will value tomorrow. We're doing a good job at digitizing the past. The next thing we have to do is analog the future. Books can be forgotten for 750 years and still work. I'm not so sure about hard drives.

ironmagma 3y ago

It's for this reason I am creating my own private engineering and scientific library that I hope to open to the public someday. If only I had a place to host it that wasn't in the middle of hundreds of acres of farmland surrounded by gopher tortoises where no one ever goes.

kristopolous 3y ago
Check out californias physical archive catalog: https://oac.cdlib.org/ https://oac.cdlib.org/ - you may find a benefactor there. The arid dryness of California, Nevada and Arizona are great for long term storage. Warehousing things out in the middle of nowhere like death valley or the mojave sounds just tops. It's the stuff that's plentiful now that we don't think about that will eventually become scarce. Think the pile of junk mail you get in your mailbox that you toss in the garbage. Things like cereal boxes from the 1970s go for, well this one recently went for $1,225: https://www.ebay.com/itm/364459062533 https://www.ebay.com/itm/364459062533 ... 12 pack of tab for $225: https://www.ebay.com/itm/374743094689 https://www.ebay.com/itm/374743094689 ... it's the stuff we all think is trash that becomes scarce. Look at 90s CRTs...they're worth thousands