[ad_1]
Reading before bed has always been my habit. Usually, I end up staying up too late to indulge in a book. Recently, after I finished reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s “The Painter of the Ukiyo World”, I read it with relish, and immediately picked up my phone and searched for other books written by him. I remember seeing people on Twitter recommending his 1995 book, The Unconsoled, which I was interested in reading. I searched the Lancaster library system and found it was available in the Ephrata branch; however, it was past midnight and I was still awake and in the mood to read on. So I went to one of my favorite resources: the Internet Archive. I searched for “The Unconsoled” and found it to be one of the 38 million books and texts on the platform. Better yet, I could check it out at the time.
The Internet Archive operates on a controlled digital lending basis, which means that if the archive has a copy of a previously purchased and scanned book, such as “The Unconsoled”, only one person can view it at a time, like a brick Same – and Mortar Libraries will lend out physical books. (The Lancaster Library System pays to access e-books for a limited time using several different platforms like Libby.)
I selected the option to check it for an hour and within seconds I was reading. (Users can borrow books for longer periods of time, or just update them hourly.)
I read dozens of books through the Internet Archives. I’ve also played dozens of Grateful Dead concerts using the Internet Archive.according to archive.org, the site has 14 million recordings and 240,000 live concerts. The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine has 725 billion web pages, and even with updates and changes made by administrators, the site freezes at some point.
The site features millions of videos and 2 million TV news programs—originally created to archive the events of 9/11 recorded in TV news. I remember writing a news story about the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and I found certain sections of the archives to be very helpful.
The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization started in 1996 to archive temporary content published on the Internet. Soon, the project continued to include books. According to their website, Archive works with more than 900 libraries and other organizations to scan 4,000 books every day in 18 locations around the world.
Users can create a free account and start reading books for research or just for fun.according to archive.orgthe site has a special mission to provide access to books, since not everyone has access to regular or academic libraries with large collections.
The Internet Archive is described as “the Library of Alexandria in the 21st century, excelling in ways that the Library of Alexandria cannot, thanks to digital technology and the Internet. Through the Internet Archive, people who do not live in the world’s capital can access and live in the world The same cultural and informational resources for people in the capital.”
This is a great resource. Almost too good to be true. Sadly, the above quote is taken from a statement in a document filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many brick-and-mortar libraries and bookstores were closed and schools went online, the Archives relaxed its controlled digital lending and created a “National Emergency Library” to allow more people to access books.
Benjamin Saracco, a research and digital services librarian at an academic medical and hospital library in New Jersey, wrote an insightful blog post archive.org On his experience directing frontline health care workers to the Internet Archive for manuals on life-saving techniques when brick-and-mortar libraries were closed.
Two months after the creation of the National Emergency Library, a group of four publishers, including HarperCollins and Penguin Random House, sued the Internet Archive for copyright infringement. Now, despite the Internet Archive’s reinstatement of controlled digital lending, the lawsuit continues.
“In an age of misinformation and challenges to democracy, we need libraries to be independent and strong more than ever,” Internet Archive founder Brewster Culler said in a press release posted on the Archives blog last month. indicated above. “That’s why we’re defending the right of libraries to provide online services to our patrons.”
The lawsuit sparked a debate over digital media ownership.From Copyright Scholar to Max Collins — Eve 6 frontman, known for “Heart in A Blender” — everyone’s been weighing up lately popula.comCollins compared the situation to music streaming service Spotify, warning that big publishers and tech platforms don’t care about fair compensation for artists. “The impact on the public is Orwellian,” he said.
I’ve enjoyed it, and continue to enjoy (I’m still working my way through “The Unconsoled” a one-hour borrowing course) Internet Archive. I appreciate their mission to be the Alexandria Digital Library. I just hope they don’t suffer the same fate.
Mike Andrelczyk is a staff writer for LNP | Lancaster Online. Unscripted is a weekly entertainment program produced by a rotating team of writers.
[ad_2]
Source link