[Foundation-l] 6 reasons we're in another book-burning period in history

[Amir E. Aharoni]

2011/10/14 David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>
>
> I love Cracked. It's Wikipedia with dick jokes.
>
> http://www.cracked.com/article_19453_6-reasons-were-in-another-book-burning-period-in-history_p2.html
>
> To be ha ha only serious for a moment, this touches on why we all
> bother doing this.

It depressed me. Thank you for ruining my weekend.

But seriously:

1. It's not really news for me: My professors have been talking very
angrily about the secret book destruction operations for years and
Asaf Bartov, the founder of BYP [1], who now works for the WMF, have
been frequently lecturing about this. But Cracked have put it in a
very understandable format.

2. Since Cracked is rather popular, this is an opportunity to
publicize Wikisource, one of Wikimedia most wonderful endeavors. It is
criminally under-publicized now.

3. Is there any project, anywhere, to systematically find books that
are going to be irrecoverably destroyed and to digitize them? I'd
argue that it's more important to digitize them before the more
popular titles, which are less likely to be lost forever. I would also
support the WMF investing money in collaborating with libraries doing
it. BYP, mentioned above, is doing something like this; it is a bunch
of volunteers, working on a shoestring budget in a small country. Is
anybody else doing it?

[1] http://www.benyehuda.org/e_faq.html

--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬