Stanford EE Computer Systems Colloquium
November 11, 2022
This lecture will be live streamed with possible participation using Zoom. Eventually the video will be posted to the EE380 archive on YouTube.
Venue for live talk. 4:00-5:30 PM Pacific Standard Time (UTC-8) with remote capture and possible participation.
Zoom live presentation. Use this link to join the live talk. https://stanford.zoom.us/j/94664214091?pwd=bnh3VEtGV0JJNUFXSGNzbmNUWklldz09
Brewster Kahle. Andrea Mills Internet Archive (archive.org) | ||||
Curator Comment
The Bay Area is the home of the Internet Archive which is an amazing resource now duplicated in Canada. Recently the Archive started a new service to make Government Research Freely Accessible For All. As we enter the Holiday Season we should all be thankful that the dedicated staff and volunteers continue to make the Internet Archive better and more comprehensive. Explore the resource and if you agree that it has enormous value, consider supporting it with a donation. -d
Abstract
Democracies need an educated citizenry to thrive. In the 21st century, that means easy access to reliable information online for all.
To meet that need, the Internet Archive is building Democracy’s Library—a free, open, online compendium of government research and publications from around the world.
“Governments have created an abundance of information and put it in the public domain, but it turns out the public can’t easily access it,” said Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle, who is spearheading the effort to collect materials for the digital library.
By having a wealth of public documents curated and searchable through a single interface, citizens will be able to leverage useful research, learn about the workings of their government, hold officials accountable, and be more informed voters.
Too often, the best information on the internet is locked behind paywalls, said Kahle, who has helped create the world’s largest digital library.
“It’s time to turn that scarcity model upside down and build an internet based on abundance,” Kahle said. There is a need for equitable access to objective, historical information to balance the onslaught of misinformation online.
Libraries have long played a vital role in collecting and preserving materials that can educate the public. This mission continues, but the collections need to include digital items to meet the needs of patrons of the internet generation today.
Over the next decade, the Internet Archive is committing to work with libraries, universities, and agencies everywhere to bring the government’s historical information online. It is inviting citizens, libraries, colleges, companies, and the Wikipedians of the world to unlock good information and weave it back into the Internet.
The project is part of Kahle’s vision to build a better Internet—one that keeps the public interest above private profit. It is based on an abundance model, in which data can be uncovered, unlocked and reused in new and different ways.
“We know there’s an information flood, but it’s not necessarily all that good,” Kahle said. “It turns out the information on the Internet is not very deep. If you know a subject well, you find that the best information is buried or not even online.”
Democracy’s Library is a move to make governments’ massive investment in research and publications open to all.
Kahle added: “Democracy’s Library is a stepping stone toward citizens who are more empowered and more engaged.“
The first steps of Democracy’s Library are available online at https://archive.org/details/democracys-library.
Speakers:
Brewster Kahle, Founder & Digital Librarian, Internet Archive
A passionate advocate for public Internet access and a successful entrepreneur, Brewster Kahle has spent his career intent on a singular focus: providing Universal Access to All Knowledge. He is the founder and Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive, one of the largest libraries in the world. Soon after graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he studied artificial intelligence, Kahle helped found the company Thinking Machines, a parallel supercomputer maker. In 1989, Kahle created the Internet's first publishing system called Wide Area Information Server (WAIS), later selling the company to AOL. In 1996, Kahle co-founded Alexa Internet, which helps catalog the Web, selling it to Amazon.com in 1999. The Internet Archive, which he founded in 1996, now preserves 20 petabytes of data - the books, Web pages, music, television, and software of our cultural heritage, working with more than 400 library and university partners to create a digital library, accessible to all.
Andrea Mills Executive Director, Internet Archive Canada
Andrea joined the Archive team at the University of Toronto in the spring of 2006. She has become immersed in all facets of managing digitization projects, with a focus on accessibility, academic libraries, archives and government partners. As Program Manager, Andrea has the pleasure of working with libraries and users around the world, helping to bring collections of material into the public domain, ensuring their organization has the greatest reach.
A meandering educational and professional experience informs Andrea's work; a diploma from George Brown College as a studio goldsmith, and time as a production designer, followed by a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities and Bachelor of Education from York University. Her lifelong love of learning and reading makes for moments caught reading rare books, both physical and digital. In her spare time, Andrea loves to ride her bike up and down mountains, knit for days on end, and feed family and friends from her kitchen.
