Internet Archive

The "Internet Archive" (archive.org), located in the Presidio of San Francisco, was founded by Brewster Kahle in 1996 and is dedicated to maintaining an archive of the Internet. Their collections include "snapshots of the World Wide Web" (archived copies of pages, taken at various points in time), movies, audio recordings, many of which are high-quality live concert recordings from bands that allow it (see Taper-friendly band), books, and software.

Related Topics:
Presidio - San Francisco - Brewster Kahle - 1996 - Archive - Internet - Snapshot - World Wide Web - Movie - Audio - Taper-friendly band - Book - Software

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The Archive makes the collections available at no cost to researchers, historians, and scholars. At present, it takes someone with a certain level of technical knowledge to access collections in a way other than the archive.org website, but there is no requirement that a user be affiliated with any particular organization.

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According to archive.org:

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"Most societies place importance on preserving artifacts of their culture and heritage. Without such artifacts, civilization has no memory and no mechanism to learn from its successes and failures. Our culture now produces more and more artifacts in digital form. The Archive's mission is to help preserve those artifacts and create an Internet library for researchers, historians, and scholars. The Archive collaborates with institutions including the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian."

Related Topics:
Library of Congress - Smithsonian

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Because of its goal of preserving human knowledge and artifacts, and making their collection available to all, proponents of the archive have likened it to the Library at Alexandria.

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