[HN Gopher] How Internet Archive Is Ensuring Permanent Access to...
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       How Internet Archive Is Ensuring Permanent Access to Open Access
       Journals
        
       Author : constantinum
       Score  : 74 points
       Date   : 2020-09-15 19:10 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (blog.archive.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (blog.archive.org)
        
       | causality0 wrote:
       | This is a good thing to do, but for once, I'm not sure the
       | Internet Archive is the right entity to do it. I don't think the
       | IA can ensure permanent access to anything at all right now since
       | it's facing an existential threat as a result of its "lend copies
       | of books that belong to other institutions" stunt.
        
         | gojomo wrote:
         | Choosing any one "the right entity" is the _wrong_ strategy for
         | truly robust preservation.
         | 
         | Redundancy in a variety of organizations & technical regimes
         | best ensures durability against all risks. So the IA's efforts
         | here should be encouraged, _and_ those of every other project
         | able to take on similar duties.
         | 
         | And if vaguely implying that the IA is inadequate, please at
         | least hint at potential alternatives who are or could be doing
         | the necessary work instead. Note that anyone concerned about
         | IA's longevity can and should leverage IA's groundwork - such
         | as by mirroring its collections elsewhere, as is fairly
         | straightforward either via explicit coordination or even
         | dark/uncoordinated scraping.
        
           | est31 wrote:
           | Yeah archives can be affected by multiple threats. Fire,
           | natural catastrophies, etc. are one. Those can be fixed
           | within the organization, by creating redundant copies in
           | different places. There are organizational threats as well,
           | affecting the structure running the archive. It's the
           | guardians of the archive not being able or willing to
           | preserve parts or all of it. The lawsuit is such an
           | organizational threat.
        
           | mellosouls wrote:
           | Your point about multiple points of failure is well made, but
           | one of the problems with the constant focus on the admirable
           | efforts of the Internet Archive here and elsewhere is
           | precisely that the many other archiving and digital
           | preservation efforts go by relatively unheralded and
           | underfunded.
           | 
           | Having said that, the spotlight on the IA does give
           | opportunity to raise the profile of web archiving and digital
           | preservation generally; we just need to be careful not to
           | invest everything in any one initiative - as the parent
           | comment fairly points out.
        
           | cxr wrote:
           | > please at least hint at potential alternatives who are or
           | could be doing the necessary work instead.
           | 
           | For this particular use case, Perma.cc has significant
           | institutional backing.
           | 
           | https://perma.cc/
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10948033
        
       | bnewbold wrote:
       | Link back to recent discussion on this topic:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24422593
        
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       (page generated 2020-09-15 23:00 UTC)