The Internet Archive opens its headquarters, a meeting place for the world of technology

Content of the article

Brewster Kahle has a modest goal: to digitize every book ever in print and put them online for free public access.

Content of the article

A daunting task, but an organization he founded in 1996 is on the mend. Since this week, the Internet Archive contains 625 billion web pages, 38 million books and texts, 14 million audio recordings, including 240,000 live concerts, seven million videos, including two million TV news, four million images and 790,000 software .

And now, Internet Archive Canada has a new headquarters at 330 West Pender in Vancouver.

Kahle is in town this week for the office opening, which is housed in a beautifully restored 1907 building.

Designed in the “temple bank” architectural style, it began life as the BC Permanent Loan Company and in recent years has been an event venue for weddings and movies.

Content of the article

It will continue in the same vein, with a focus on the world of technology.

“It’s a gathering place, a hub of the open world,” Kahle explains. “It’s supposed to be a place where people come together, on the social side, the moral side, of technology. It is a meeting place for gatherings, so parties, conferences, book discussions. We will also continue its current function and slow down slowly. »

Kahle, 61, lives in San Francisco, where the Internet Archive is located. But Internet Archive Canada operated for 16 years, and during the pandemic it spent six months here looking for a building.

He came across the permanent building while walking down the street.

“We were walking on a snowy night and there was this building that was shiny and impressive,” he says. “It looks like a small version of the building we have in San Francisco.”

Content of the article

“It was perfect, because if we had come across a huge building, we wouldn’t know what to do with it. In this time of remote workers and all, what we really want is the social and community support space function.

There will also be servers in the building, which is located a few blocks from a new technology center for Amazon in the old post office in Vancouver.

“The idea is to support what Vancouver is becoming,” he said. “It’s a historic and beautiful place, but it’s (also) a high-tech hub.”

Kahle notes that the building is only a few blocks from the Vancouver Public Library. Simon Fraser University’s downtown campus is also nearby.

Libraries and universities are essential to the Internet Archive, which often partners with them to provide digital access to the masses.

Content of the article

“Internet Archive Canada works with 275 contributing library partners in Canada,” he said. “Across Canada, on every street corner.

“There are over 600,000 items in Canadian library book collections that have been digitized from Canadian libraries. There have been half a billion downloads of books that have been digitized from Canadian libraries. »

He’s not one of those techies who wants to throw things like books away after they’ve been scanned.

“Digital documents are the access versions, and the physical versions go to a physical archive,” he said. “(It’s) not very accessible, we’re not talking about shelves and people browsing, but it’s preserved. (Because) I think we will still need it. We went back and re-digitized things, because we figured out how to do better.

Content of the article

“And we’re going to be able to need to pull this thing out and say, ‘No, it really said that. (Or) George Orwell didn’t really write it that way. Digital is sometimes a little too easy to change.

Kahle Wikipedia Biography describes him as a “digital librarian, computer engineer, internet entrepreneur and advocate for universal access to all knowledge”.

The Internet Archive works with Wikipedia to provide “blue links” to footnotes in Wikipedia articles, “so you can click and jump to the correct page in a book.”

Kahle also founded Alexa Internet, which he sold to Amazon in 1999. But he laughs when asked about it.

“People say, ‘Oh, you invented Alexa!'” he says. “I said, ‘Yeah, but not that one.’

“Alexa Internet is a company bought by Amazon that helped create AWS (Amazon Web Services). But that’s not the talking widget, unfortunately. They used the name, they own the name, but the talking widget is not mine.

jmackie@postmedia.com

More news, less ads: Our in-depth journalism is possible thanks to the support of our subscribers. For just $3.50 a week, you can get unlimited, lightweight access to the Vancouver Sun, The Province, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Vancouver Sun | Province.