Ep. 128 Brewster Kahle "The Library of Everything"

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Apr 24, 2019

Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, shares his vision for a decentralized library of digital culture. He discusses the challenge of preserving 20th-century works and the importance of controlled digital lending. Kahle highlights the gaps in access to academic research and advocates for open access against corporate models. The conversation touches on the need for resilient digital infrastructure and how algorithms can help verify information. Listeners are encouraged to engage with the archive and explore its vast collections.

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INSIGHT

Library Of Everything Vision

Brewster Kahle envisioned a 'library of everything' from early on and worked to publish large collections online.
He built systems to anchor publishing in the open web rather than closed proprietary services.

ANECDOTE

Alexa's Donation Contract

Brewster founded Alexa to catalog and recommend web pages and embedded a contract to donate crawled data to the Internet Archive.
Since 1996 Alexa has donated daily web crawl data to the Internet Archive, even after acquisition.

INSIGHT

Web Pages Are Ephemeral

Web pages are ephemeral: the typical lifespan is roughly 100 days before change or deletion.
The Wayback Machine records and weaves those moments back into the web to preserve context and history.

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Playing for Team Human today, founder of the Internet Archive, Brewster Kahle. Kahle is keeping the dream of building a decentralized, open, mind-expanding internet alive. In this Team Human conversation, Brewster and Douglas discuss the faulty dot-com business models and incentives that derailed the net. They look at the mountains of Twentieth Century culture in danger of being lost from the archive. In a historical moment when we feel exploited and distrustful of so much media, Internet Archive presents a refuge for deeper searches, research, and exploration.

The Internet Archive’s associated projects including the Wayback Machine, tv.archive.org, the Great 78 Project and openlibrary.org all play a significant role in making sure the internet remains a home for culture and sharing. But don’t take our word for it. Jump in! Dig though the stacks at archive.org. Borrow a book at OpenLibrary. Upload your band’s demo or search your original website on the Wayback Machine.

This episode ends with clips from the Prelinger Archive, including video produced for the World’s Fair by Westinghouse and a Civil Defense film teaching students to “duck and cover” in the age of atomic weapons.

Douglas opens today’s show with an exploration of Operation Mindfuck. Was Operation Mindfuck too successful? Has consensus reality disappeared all too completely so that we are left with nothing real, no true grounding at all? Check out Douglas’s regular column on Medium, featuring expanded versions of the monologues you hear each week opening the show.

Team Human happens each week thanks to the generous support of our listeners on Patreon. Your support makes the hours of labor that go into each show possible. You can also help by reviewing the show on iTunes.

On this episode you heard Fugazi’s “Foreman’s Dog” in the intro thanks to the kindness of the band and Dischord Records. Mid-show you heard R.U. Sirius’s President Mussolini Makes the Planes Run On Time as well as transition music thanks to Herkimer Diamonds.

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