6/23/2006
brewster kahle (internet archive) profile
ResourceShelf points out a News.com report profiling Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive.Google’s quest to archive all human knowledge is more well-known because, well, they’re Google, but Kahle’s quest to do the same is, I dare say, more long-standing. He started up the Internet Archive in 1996 when Yahoo and Altavista and Webcrawler were still ruling the search landscape (and before I had a computer with internet access). Back then, the goal was merely to preserve websites, but his mission has expanded, and the Internet Archive is now involved with the digitization of books, music, television, and movies.
I have to smile at “Alexandria, Ver. 2,” his name for his project to archive everything, but my favorite part isn’t his description of what the internet library will be, but the following:’
Kahle relishes his role as Internet archivist. The staggering volume of material to digitize–centuries of historic media, and new data appearing by the minute–doesn’t daunt him. Commercial interests whose monetizing efforts threaten free universal access do. So he readily takes up the cause to fight for freely accessible information.
“If we lose (the library of human knowledge) to a corporate interest, I would have screwed up. Having it go to corporate hands is my worst nightmare,” he says.
Kahle wants to return to the ” Enlightenment-era ideal of universal education.” I’d like to as well.
Filed under: Miscellany, Librarianship, Technology, Shiny Things
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