Shining a Light on the Digital Dark Age – Without maintenance, most digital information will be lost in just a few decades

Shining a Light on the Digital Dark Age
Without maintenance, most digital information will be lost in just a few decades. How might we secure our data so that it survives for generations?

The Internet Archive also takes multi-century preservation energy costs into account: “We own and operate and run all our own data centers,” says Bailey. “That’s partly because we’re an archive and don’t want to be dependent on corporate infrastructure, and partly because we can then run less expensive climate control operations.”

September 1, 2023 by Archives Technology

Stephen King: My Books Were Used to Train AI

My Books Were Used to Train AI

I have said in one of my few forays into nonfiction (On Writing) that you can’t learn to write unless you’re a reader, and unless you read a lot. AI programmers have apparently taken this advice to heart. Because the capacity of computer memory is so large—everything I ever wrote could fit on one thumb drive, a fact that never ceases to blow my mind—these programmers can dump thousands of books into state-of-the-art digital blenders. Including, it seems, mine. The real question is whether you get a sum that’s greater than the parts, when you pour back out.

August 24, 2023 by AI Authors Technology

In St. Joseph, local GOP pressured lawmakers to block approval of gay library board member

The Buchanan County party leader threatened not to allow city council members to run as Republicans if they approved the appointment of a gay pastor to the city’s library board. The controversy has created a push for broader change in St. Joseph.

In St. Joseph, local GOP pressured lawmakers to block approval of gay library board member

“This transgender and homosexual propaganda is pure evil, It is designed to destroy the family, to undercut traditional American values and our way of life, and ultimately institute governmental control that will undermine our city, county, state, and nation.”

August 21, 2023 by Politics Public Libraries

Why the smell of vinegar shut down a Toronto library’s historical newspaper archive

Why the smell of vinegar shut down a Toronto library’s historical newspaper archive

But in the years since, libraries, archives and collectors have discovered “safety film” actually poses a huge threat to film-based archives and collections because it eventually breaks down. An early indication is the smell of vinegar, which comes from acetic acid that the film gives off as it degrades. Eventually, the film shrinks and cracks until the image is lost.

The destructive and contagious chemical decay is aptly called “vinegar syndrome” — and it means the clock is ticking for those trying to preserve history from this era in Toronto, across the country and around the world.

August 21, 2023 by Archives Libraries

A Warning From the Unpublished Preface to Orwell’s Animal Farm

His Preface, “The Freedom of the Press” was omitted from the first edition of the book, then disappeared, and was not rediscovered until 1971. From it, we learn that Orwell had considerable difficulty getting his fable published. That wasn’t principally because of wartime issues. There was a shortage of books and his was highly readable. Rather, British intellectuals of the day did not wish to hear any criticism of Stalin or allusions to his atrocities…

A Warning From the Unpublished Preface to Orwell’s Animal Farm

And he ends his Preface on a high note,

I know that the English intelligentsia have plenty of reason for their timidity and dishonesty, indeed I know by heart the arguments by which they justify themselves. But at least let us have no more nonsense about defending liberty against Fascism. If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

August 15, 2023 by Authors Books Politics

How librarians, kids and the country are paying for the ongoing rancor : NPR

It’s been a year since the start of what one librarian here calls "The Troubles." That's when once-boring meetings of the Livingston Parish Library Board of Control started devolving into bitter brawls over books that some consider to be too sexual and harmful to kids. Meetings have been laced with insults, interruptions and the kind of profanity that would probably get you kicked out of the library.

The plot thickens: The battle over books comes at a cost

August 11, 2023 by Censorship Public Libraries

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