Sunday, May 27, 2007

InternetArchive.org is now officially a library

From a post in the Internet Archive (www.archive.org) forum (2 May 2007):
screenshot - Internet Archive is officially a Library
Well, the Internet Archive is now officially a library according to the State of California! It turns out that to receive a particular kind of federal funding, you have to have your state sign off that you are a library.

With a minimum amount of back and forth (including their saying "we have not evaluated something like the Internet Archive before") we were given the approval.

Nice to know!

-brewster

I first heard about Internet Archive back in late '90s. The name "Wayback Machine" was also used interchangeably (I think that later got consolidated as "Internet Archive" when they archived more than just web sites).

More about the Internet Archive here.

BTW, I looked up "library" in my Mac's Oxford American dictionary (Version 1.0.1) and the entry says:
Noun ~ a building or room containing collections of books, periodicals, and sometimes films and recorded music for people to read, borrow, or refer to : a school library | [as adj. ] a library book.

• a collection of books and periodicals held in such a building or room : the Institute houses an outstanding library of 35,000 volumes on the fine arts.

• a collection of films, recorded music, genetic material, etc., organized systematically and kept for research or borrowing : a record library.

• a series of books, recordings, etc., issued by the same company and similar in appearance. • a room in a private house where books are kept.

• (also software library) Computing a collection of programs and software packages made generally available, often loaded and stored on disk for immediate use.

ORIGIN late Middle English : via Old French from Latin libraria ‘bookshop,’ feminine (used as a noun) of librarius ‘relating to books,’ from liber, libr- ‘book.’

I think it's time to update the opening paragraph and add another bullet point, so that the definition includes something like the Internet Archive (where the library and its collections isn't physical in the traditional sense).

5 comments:

  1. I'm happy for them too! I use Internet Archives a lot as a cheap (free) way of sharing my podcast / videocast. I'll explain more if I ever have to present tips on sharing videos online.

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  2. Ivan, the green quoted text doesn't contrast well against your background. Can change colour? *grumble, grumble*

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  3. Hey since you're moderating comments, can remove the "jump through the hoops" step of word verification?

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  4. Hmm.. I have to live with it. No time to figure out how to change it (unlike when I was starting out). Will do less quotes, I guess. Oh, the word verification was necessary to prevent spam.

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  5. Ahh..coment color improved, great!

    ANd one step commenting, how nice!

    ReplyDelete

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