#i love you internet archive !!!!!!!!!

[canarypost]

you can read tbosas on internet archive for free. btw. right now. here.

[vivisect-six]

yeah sure. kaiju basic white women

[cl4ssyjazzy]

Reminder to PLEASE support the internet archive.

It's a nonprofit filled to the brim with music, movies, audio books and books FOR FREE. There's a ton of film classics and books and I basically borrow something every week, it's a virtual library and it's incredible.

PLEASE donate if you can!! And If you can't, that's fine!! Spreading the word and checking out the site if you haven't is enough!

[wizard-laundry]

the text originally read "EGADS! DO MY EYES DECEIVE ME?"

[carriesthewind]

Ok. I am maybe kind of losing my mind just a little bit.

A few days ago, I mentioned in a post that the IA only cares about information being digitized, not about actual digital access. And I mentioned that access includes patrons being able to actually find what they are looking for, and suggested IA did not prioritize that critical aspect of access. But I didn't really go into any more detail.

So someone over on bluesky linked to this write-up of a talk Brewster Kahle gave about using so-called AI. And one of his reported statements made my mouth drop open in shock.

...and then I read further in the article and realized it was incorrectly reporting basic facts around Hachette, so I had to go and listen to the whole speech myself.* (And I want to say, briefly - he raises some legitimate potential uses for LLMs! He's kind of a dick about some of it ("it's up to us to go and keep [Balinese] culture alive"), but some of the things he's talking about actually seem useful.)

*Incidentally, while Kahle doesn't lie about the ALA brief in the speech, he absolutely misleads about the nature and facts of the case and deliberately omit the part of the story where the IA decided to suspend the one-to-one owned-to-loan ratio thing, despite repeatedly emphasizing that one-to-one was what the IA was doing with their lending program.

And oh my god. He really said what the article reports. (This portion starts around 20:10.)

He says that the IA has scanned over 18,000 periodicals. And that they used to have professional librarians manually create descriptions of the periodicals in order to catalog them. (Sidenote: there are existing directories, but he describes their licensing terms as "ridiculous." This is not a field I know much about, but I spoke to one person who agreed, though for different reasons. His reason is that you can only license, not purchase, the directory descriptions. The person I spoke to was instead focused on the prices demanded for the licenses. Regardless, the idea of creating an open, free directory seems both like an incredible amount of work and an amazing resource...if it was accurate.)

But according to Kahle, it took 45 minutes to an hour to create a description and catalog each periodical.

And so now, instead, they're using AI to make the descriptions and so it only takes 7-10 minutes!

"And yes it hallucinates, and it has some problems, and whatever — but it’s a lot faster than having to write it yourself!"

Oh. My god.

Just.

YOU ARE KNOWINGLY INTRODUCING AI HALLUCINATIONS INTO YOUR CATALOG?!

(And yes, he says that they are "confirmed by a librarian" but it can't really be, not if it's only taking 7-10 minutes! Maybe the librarian can do a quick check for super obvious errors, but actually checking a AI's summary work requires actually going back to the source and reviewing it yourself!)

I just....

I need to emphasize for those of you for who aren't familiar - if a book or article is miscataloged, it is effectively lost. Because it doesn't mater if a library or an archive owes it - if someone can't find it when they are looking for it, it is not only inaccessible, the only way to find it again is through chance. Imagine if you went into a library, but instead of organized shelves (where if even if you can't find what you're looking for, the librarians know where to look), every single book was just piled in a heap.

If a book is miscateloged, it still exists, but it is lost, not truly accessible. And they know that this is happening, "but whatever." Because Brewster Kahle doesn't actually care about real, practical, digital access. (Much less non-digital access.)

(And then to top it off, he goes on to criticize the Library of Congress for not being "access oriented.")

I just. 18,000 periodicals. And they've knowing, recklessly lost who knows how many of them. I feel like crying.

18,000 periodicals.

[bucketofcursedbooks]

I love you lost media I love you video essays I love you iceberg chart videos I love you archive sites I love you old web I love you media leaks I love you reference book section I love you obscure and strange history I love you Wikipedia

[okaydays22]

[wallbeatjournal]

what if i told you hiram lodge was a redditor?

i think he's catfishing and suicide-baiting posters on niche kink subreddits at this very moment

[theophagie]

Dream drop distance scenario and cutscene director Masaru Oka we owe everything to you............

[banefort]

"An obsessive fan follows an artist home and tries to get their attention by literally literally tearing himself apart."

Stray Dogs, dir. Richard Kern (1985), House of the Dragon (2022-)

[corpsoir]

hey there traveller. i see your weary face, youve been fighting crusty pdfs from shady websites all day, i see the pain in your eyes. hey friend, come over here. grab my hand. its going to be okay, im here to help

with a free account at the internet archive you get free access to all of their tens of millions of free books, movies, audio recordings, images and softwares for free. by using their services youre helping keeping digital and non-digital human heritage preserved online and accessible for everyone all over the world. the internet archive is also the place you find the wayback machine where you can explore the history of the internet, which isnt only fun but also educational and helpful if youre looking for info or sources online that have since been deleted.

im gonna let go of your hand now. good luck traveller. i love you.

[undeadboyfriendsupportgroup]

R.I.P Timothy Stoker you would've loved Nasty by Tinashe and HOT TO GO by Chappelle Roan

[predoom]

i love u

[theragamuffininitiative]

I'm not exactly sorry that my blog has turned into nothing but the man from u.n.c.l.e. content but I am at least a little bit sheepish ok

[lucifersimp]

PSA For All Wayback Machine Users

If you want to save the URL of an AO3 fic that is rated Mature, Explicit, Not Rated, or uses the Content Warnings, you need to save the ?view_adult=true version of the URL (same URL with ?view_adult=true at the end)

If you don't add that at the end, your archive will be completely useless because the Wayback machine will not save the fic. It will automatically save the "This work could have adult content. If you proceed you have agreed that you are willing to see such content" page.

Remember this? Most of us have an account and don't see it anymore, but the Wayback Machine is an archive, you can't log in. It treats you like a non registered user. If you click on "Proceed" and the ?view_adult=true page isn't archived, you can't read the fic.

Archive the actual fics, not the adult content warning page!

Always add ?view_adult=true at the end of the URL

*You should also save the ?view_full_work=true of multi-chaptered fics!

If it's a mature fic, it's

?view_adult=true&view_full_work=true

*and always download your favorite fics to have backups

[b0nelessdoodles]

did you know what watching a show you really like is actually pretty good for your brain just a fun fact