
Brewster Kahle Should Be the Next Librarian of Congress - Hagelin
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/09/10/brewster_kahle_creator_of_the_internet_archive_should_be_the_next_librarian.html
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E34C3EFAF162
I know HN has a love affair going with IA and stuff, but as someone who has
worked in the digital library world and has traveled in some of the same
circles as IA, I don't really see this.

The IA is a great project and all, but it's not really the same as the Library
of Congress. LC has to be sort of an indelible record of the doings of
government and the literature of the day. The scope is big, but it's well-
defined.

The IA is a moonshot effort at capturing _everything_ , which is another way
of saying it's more important to capture more things than it is to capture a
given single thing _well_. It's interesting and important, but it's anti-
library in a way, rather than being an enhancement of what libraries do.

Not to mention, I don't really believe IA is a pinnacle of digital library
engineering by any means. I've heard tell of digital signatures that have
shifted over time, for example.

I think Mr. Kahle has come to represent "forward thinking" in terms of
providing library services in a digital age in the technology world, because
he comes from the Valley and founded a successful internet property and
whatnot, but that doesn't mean there aren't prominent technologists that come
from the library world rather than the tech world who aren't also capable of
pushing LC forward on the digital front.

~~~
kyledrake
Brewster isn't considered forward thinking because he's from San Francisco and
worked on a startup. He's considered forward thinking because he's selflessly
and tirelessly spent an enormous amount of time and money working to prevent a
Lost Decade for human knowledge, while the rest of us (including me) were
sitting around letting it erode away. I've met web researchers that have told
me they sometimes spend 80% of their time on the Internet Archive. That's how
bad the problem is, and how important it is that Brewster has worked to
address it.

The Library of Congress, like every library in the world, needs to not only
get serious about digitization of content and archival of web content, but
also about providing _access_ to that information for the public.

This not only requires the right kind of technology for data archiving (which
the Internet Archive has developed and used successfully), but it also
requires a step forward for the nature of things like HTTP, and how we
federate and distribute data. With the right technology, we absolutely can and
should archive as much information as we can to preserve our true history for
future generations, not just the "New Books" section of Barnes and Noble.

I've been doing some work on that front, and Brewster was right there
advocating for it ([http://brewster.kahle.org/2015/08/11/locking-the-web-
open-a-...](http://brewster.kahle.org/2015/08/11/locking-the-web-open-a-call-
for-a-distributed-web-2/)). When it comes to getting things done, I bias
towards the people that show up to do the work. Brewster showed up, but I
haven't seen any "digital library world" people around lately, except for when
they tried to lock up Aaron Swartz for opening up JSTOR, a company making a
profit off the public funding of research by locking the public out of the
information it paid for. That's not the future of information, and that's not
how things are going to be. All that is is a data cartel that's run out of
ideas working to push out competition.

I think the only relevant question here is "does Brewster actually want the
job?", but I think he's perfectly qualified for it, and there is not a single
person on the planet that is better qualified for it.

~~~
E34C3EFAF162
So... CDL doesn't exist. LOCKSS doesn't exist. DPLA doesn't exist. HathiTrust
doesn't exist. DuraSpace doesn't exist. Well, interesting.

~~~
tlb
Instead of content-free sarcasm, contribute constructively to the discussion
by telling us what these organizations do, and what parts you think they do
better or worse than IA.

------
cwyers
The headline on Slate, "The Creator of the Internet Archive Should Be the Next
Librarian of Congress," is better than the proferred headline here on HN, and
the HN guidelines say to use the original headline unless it violates one of
several rules (this doesn't).

~~~
Hagelin
I think the original headline of the article was "Brewster Kahle, the Creator
of the Internet Archive, Should Be the Next Librarian of Congress" and that I
submitted it shortened to it's current headline "The Creator of the Internet
Archive Should Be the Next Librarian of Congress."

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rsync
I don't know who Brewster Kahle is, and I don't know who is doing what at the
LoC, but I _do_ know that however it shakes up, someone needs to get Jason
Scott[1][2] onboard and give him the resources he needs to keep doing what he
does at ever-increasing scale.

[1] [http://ascii.textfiles.com/](http://ascii.textfiles.com/)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Scott](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Scott)

Edit: Oh, I guess BK is an IA person, so he knows Jason Scott very well :)

~~~
archseer
Brewster Kahle is the founder of IA and Jason Scott's boss.

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pshapiro99
Brewster Kahle would be a wise choice for the next Librarian of Congress. His
devotion to the public good is unquestionable. His great strength - the
digital realm - will help the Library of Congress catch up to lost time,
carrying our nation forward to where it needs to be -- leading, not following.

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Einstalbert
This is a remarkable idea. I could think of no one better, but then again, I
haven't really thought about this sort of thing. Bias or no, if it wouldn't
impede on what is clearly something we should consider a World Wonder, I would
love to see Mr. Kahle fit the role.

