“Organising all the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. The grand goal, Google has set for itself. Once upon a time there was “to organize the world’s information” as a task for the public, which is why we have institutions such as the National Library. But when it comes to digital information and in particular that produced the Internet, states around the world gladly handed over the task to private companies.
The catch here is that Google discovered that by making the world’s information available is not always so profitable. After Google bought up Deja, archives of Usenet discussions back to the early 1980s – a unique documentation of the Internet’s history – these now become impossible for researchers to search efficiently.
A another ambitious project, Google News Archives, containing newspaper articles back 200 years in time, were scrapped completely oceremoniellt. Google Books are on the backburner, while the search engine, the company’s flagship, has removed the functions Timeline to let it be used as a tool to explore the Web’s history. The company’s secret algorithm, no one else, will determine which results are visible.
Internet Archives, Perhaps the biggest voluntary project the web for Wikipedia, on the other hand saved so far 435 billion historic sites, and today also searchable archive of 6 million books and over 3 million films and videos – from concert recordings to home videos to historical commercials and newscasts.
In January this year they launched thousands of historical games and other software, executable over the network so that they once looked into an Atari, Sega Genesis or pre-Windows personal computer. Videos of the player relives its 1980s have already started to appear on YouTube.
Preserving and cataloging digital story may not be very profitable, but it raises obviously interest – and the lack of public investment, the volunteers who take responsibility.
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