Author Archives: Chris Freeland

About Chris Freeland

Chris Freeland is the Director of Library Services at Internet Archive.

Book Talk: Sparks by Ian Johnson

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Join author Ian Johnson for an IN-PERSON discussion about his latest book, “Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future”

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Sparks tells the resonant story of writers, filmmakers, and artists who use history to challenge Communist Party rule.

6:00 PM — Doors Open
6:30 PM — Book Talk: Sparks by Ian Johnson
7:30 PM — Book Signing

Please note that this event will be held in person at the Internet Archive, 300 Funston Avenue, San Francisco.

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About Sparks
Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future (to be published by Oxford University Press on September 26, 2023) describes how some of China’s best-known writers, filmmakers, and artists have overcome crackdowns and censorship to forge a nationwide movement that challenges the Communist Party on its most hallowed ground: its control of history.

The past is a battleground in many countries, but in China it is crucial to political power. In traditional China, dynasties rewrote history to justify their rule by proving that their predecessors were unworthy of holding power. Marxism gave this a modern gloss, describing history as an unstoppable force heading toward Communism’s triumph. The Chinese Communist Party builds on these ideas to whitewash its misdeeds and glorify its rule. Indeed, one of Xi Jinping’s signature policies is the control of history, which he equates with the party’s survival.

But in recent years, a network of independent writers, artists, and filmmakers have begun challenging this state-led disremembering. Using digital technologies to bypass China’s legendary surveillance state, their samizdat journals, guerilla media posts, and underground films document a regular pattern of disasters: from famines and purges of years past to ethnic clashes and virus outbreaks of the present–powerful and inspiring accounts that have underpinned recent protests in China against Xi Jinping’s strongman rule.

Based on years of first-hand research in Xi Jinping’s China, Sparks challenges stereotypes of a China where the state has quashed all free thought, revealing instead a country engaged in one of humanity’s great struggles of memory against forgetting—a battle that will shape the China that emerges in the mid-21st century.

Ian Johnson is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has lived more than twenty years in China as a student, journalist, and teacher. His work appears regularly in The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, and other publications, and for five years he was on the editorial board of The Journal of Asian Studies. He has won numerous prizes for his coverage of China, including a Pulitzer Prize.

Book Talk: Sparks by Ian Johnson
October 19 @ 6pm PT
IN-PERSON @ 300 Funston Avenue, San Francisco
Register now!

Internet Archive Files Appeal in Publishers’ Lawsuit Against Libraries

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Today, the Internet Archive has submitted its appeal [PDF] in Hachette v. Internet Archive. As we stated when the decision was handed down in March, we believe the lower court made errors in facts and law, so we are fighting on in the face of great challenges. We know this won’t be easy, but it’s a necessary fight if we want library collections to survive in the digital age.

Statement from Brewster Kahle, founder and digital librarian of the Internet Archive:
“Libraries are under attack like never before. The core values and library functions of preservation and access, equal opportunity, and universal education are being threatened by book bans, budget cuts, onerous licensing schemes, and now by this harmful lawsuit. We are counting on the appellate judges to support libraries and our longstanding and widespread library practices in the digital age. Now is the time to stand up for libraries.”

We will share more information about the appeal as it progresses. 

To support our ongoing efforts, please donate as we continue this fight! 

Book Talk: Memory, Edited

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Join archivist Rick Prelinger and author Abby Smith Rumsey for an IN-PERSON discussion about “Memory, Edited: Taking Liberties with History.”

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An exploration of historical memory and networks of meaning in the context of today’s crises of extremism and polarization.

6:00 PM — Doors Open
6:30 PM — Book Talk: Memory, Edited
7:30 PM — Book Signing

Please note that this event will be held in person at the Internet Archive, 300 Funston Avenue, San Francisco.

REGISTER NOW

About Memory, Edited
As authoritarianism continues to rise around the world, the stories we tell ourselves about what has happened and what is happening become ever more relevant. In Memory, Edited, Abby Smith Rumsey examines collective memory, how it binds us, and how it can be used by bad actors to manipulate us. Bringing forward the voices of a rich cast of Eastern European artists from the past two hundred years—from Fyodor Dostoevsky to Gerhard Richter—Rumsey shows how their work and lives illustrate the devastation wrought by regimes dependent on entrenched lies to survive. This hijacking of the narrative polarizes communities even as it commandeers our future.

Through an interdisciplinary lens that includes the best thinking from history, the arts, cognitive science, psychology, and political philosophy, Rumsey lays bare our narratives, showing how they are constructed and how they have changed over time. Ever-aware of resisting the false promise of utopia, Rumsey argues that only by confronting the past and reckoning with the crimes that were committed can we ever hope to heal and gain self-knowledge. Memory, Edited is an indispensable text for anyone who cares about democracy, equality, and freedom in our current age of crisis.

Abby Smith Rumsey is an intellectual and cultural historian. She chairs the board of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and is the author of When We Are No More: How Digital Memory Is Shaping Our Future.

Rick Prelinger is an archivist, filmmaker, writer and educator.

Book Talk: Memory, Edited
September 20 @ 6pm PT
IN-PERSON @ 300 Funston Avenue, SF
Register now!

Library Leaders Forum 2023: Registration is now open

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Join experts from the library, copyright and information policy fields for a series of conversations exploring some of the most pressing issues facing libraries today: digital ownership and the future of library collections, the emergence of artificial intelligence, and the enduring value of research libraries in the digital age.

This year’s Library Leaders Forum will be organized on two separate dates to provide attendees with a flexible environment in which to reconnect with colleagues. Learn more about the event on the Library Leaders Forum web site, or register below.

October 4: Virtual

October 4 @ 10am PT – 11am PT
Online via zoom – Register now

In our virtual session, you’ll hear from Internet Archive staff about our emerging library services and updates on existing efforts, including from our partners. How do libraries empower research in the 21st century? Join in our discussion!

October 12: In-Person

October 12 @ 8:30am – 4pm PT
Internet Archive Headquarters @ 300 Funston, San Francisco

At our in-person session, we’ll gather together with the builders & dreamers to envision an equitable future for digital lending. We’ll reserve the afternoon for workshops and unconference breakouts so that you can choose your own conversation, or lead one yourself. Capacity will be capped at 60 attendees. Interested in attending?

What the Hachette v. Internet Archive Decision Means for Our Library

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Our library is still strong, growing, and serving millions of patrons. But the publishers’ attack on basic library practices continues.

Linking references in Wikipedia to the cited page in our library.

Last Friday, the Southern District of New York court issued its final order in Hachette v. Internet Archive, thus bringing the lower court proceedings to a close. We disagree with the court’s decision and intend to appeal. In the meantime, however, we will abide by the court’s injunction. 

The lawsuit only concerns our book lending program. The injunction clarifies that the Publisher Plaintiffs will notify us of their commercially available books, and the Internet Archive will expeditiously remove them from lending. Additionally, Judge Koeltl also signed an order in favor of the Internet Archive, agreeing with our request that the injunction should only cover books available in electronic format, and not the publishers’ full catalog of books in print. Separately, we have come to agreement with the Association of American Publishers (AAP), the trade organization that coordinated the original lawsuit with the four publishers, that the AAP will not support further legal action against the Internet Archive for controlled digital lending if we follow the same takedown procedures for any AAP-member publisher. 

So what is the impact of these final orders on our library? Broadly, this injunction will result in a significant loss of access to valuable knowledge for the public. It means that people who are not part of an elite institution or who do not live near a well-funded public library will lose access to books they cannot read otherwise. It is a sad day for the Internet Archive, our patrons, and for all libraries.

Because this case was limited to our book lending program, the injunction does not significantly impact our other library services.  The Internet Archive may still digitize books for preservation purposes, and may still provide access to our digital collections in a number of ways, including through interlibrary loan and by making accessible formats available to people with qualified print disabilities. We may continue to display “short portions” of books as is consistent with fair use—for example, Wikipedia references (as shown in the image above). The injunction does not affect lending of out-of-print books. And of course, the Internet Archive will still make millions of public domain texts available to the public without restriction.

Regarding the monetary payment, we can say that “AAP’s significant attorney’s fees and costs incurred in the Action since 2020 have been substantially compensated by the Monetary Judgement Payment.” 

Thanks to your continued support, our library is still strong, growing, and serving millions of patrons.

Libraries are going to have to fight to be able to buy, preserve, and lend digital books outside of the confines of temporary licensed access. We deeply appreciate your support as we continue this fight!

Internet Archive Responds to Recording Industry Lawsuit Targeting Obsolete Media

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Late Friday, some of the world’s largest record labels, including Sony and Universal Music Group, filed a lawsuit against the Internet Archive and others for the Great 78 Project, a community effort for the preservation, research and discovery of 78 rpm records that are 70 to 120 years old. As a non-profit library, we take this matter seriously and are currently reviewing the lawsuit with our legal counsel.

A 78 rpm player in the foyer of the Internet Archive.

Of note, the Great 78 Project has been in operation since 2006 to bring free public access to a largely forgotten but culturally important medium. Through the efforts of dedicated librarians, archivists and sound engineers, we have preserved hundreds of thousands of recordings that are stored on shellac resin, an obsolete and brittle medium. The resulting preserved recordings retain the scratch and pop sounds that are present in the analog artifacts; noise that modern remastering techniques remove.

Statement from Brewster Kahle, digital librarian of the Internet Archive:
“When people want to listen to music they go to Spotify. When people want to study 78rpm sound recordings as they were originally created, they go to libraries like the Internet Archive. Both are needed. There shouldn’t be conflict here.”

These preservation recordings are used in teaching and research, including by university professors like Jason Luther of Rowan University, whose students use the Great 78 collection as the basis for researching and writing podcasts for use in class assignments (University Professor Leverages 78rpm Record Collection From the Internet Archive for Student Podcasts, June 9, 2021). While this mode of access is important, usage is tiny—on average, each recording in the collection is only accessed by one researcher per month.

A technician uses a 4-arm turntable to digitize a 78 rpm record.

While we review the lawsuit, we remain dedicated to our mission of providing “Universal Access to All Knowledge.” We are grateful for the continued support of our library patrons and partners as we continue to fight these attacks.

For more information or media inquiries, please contact press@archive.org. 

LINKS

Our Fight is Far From Over

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Four months after the disappointing decision on summary judgment in Hachette v. Internet Archive, a number of papers were filed today in the district court, and then the judge is expected to make his final judgment. We expect that, at least while the appeal is pending, there will be changes to our lending program, but the full scope of those changes is a question pending with the district court. We will provide an update on those changes once the district court decision is final.

Our fight is far from over—We remain steadfast in our belief that libraries should be able to own, preserve, and lend digital books outside of the confines of temporary licensed access. We believe that the judge made errors of law and fact in the decision, and we will appeal.

Statement from Internet Archive founder, Brewster Kahle:
“Libraries are under attack at unprecedented scale today, from book bans to defunding to overzealous lawsuits like the one brought against our library. These efforts are cutting off the public’s access to truth at a key time in our democracy. We must have strong libraries, which is why we are appealing this decision.”

How to Take Action:

Stand up for libraries
Stand up for the digital rights of all libraries! Join the Battle for Libraries: https://www.battleforlibraries.com/ 

Support the Internet Archive 
Support the Internet Archive to continue fighting for libraries in court!

Stay connected
Sign up for the Empowering Libraries newsletter for ongoing updates about the lawsuit and our library.

Celebrate with the Internet Archive on October 11th & 12th

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Join us on October 11th & 12th to help celebrate AI @ IA : Research in the Age of Artificial Intelligence!

October 11: Tour of the physical archive

Please join us October 11th @ 6-8pm as we take a peek behind the doors of the physical archive in Richmond, California.

We are excited to offer a behind-the-scenes tour of our physical collections of books, music, film, and video in Richmond, California.

With this special insider event we are opening the doors to an often unseen place. See the lifecycle of physical books – donation, preservation, digitization, and access. Also, samples from generous donations and acquisitions of books, records, microfiche, and more are presented.

Register now for the physical archive tour

October 12: Join our annual celebration – in-person & virtual

Artificial Intelligence rocking your boat? Join us October 12th to see how the Internet Archive is using AI to build new capabilities into our library, and how students and scholars all over the world use the Archive’s petabytes of data to inform their own research.

This year’s event is hybrid. We will be celebrating in-person at our main library in San Francisco, and will be livestreaming the event itself from 7pm-8pm PT for those who want to celebrate with us from afar!

Register now for in-person or virtual attendance

Event details

5pm: Entertainment and food trucks
7pm: Program in our Great Room
8pm: Dancing in the streets

Location: 300 Funston Ave. at Clement St., San Francisco

Registration is required: Register now for in-person or virtual attendance.

Bowling Green State University Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives partners with Internet Archive

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BGSU Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives partners with Internet Archive to provide digital access to thousands of historic recordings 

The BGSU Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives, one of the largest collections of popular music at an academic institution in the United States, has partnered with the Internet Archive’s Great 78 Project to digitize thousands of records made in the early 20th century.  

The University’s collection of over 100,000 of these discs represents one of the largest collections processed by the Internet Archive’s Great 78 Project, a program dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of these early recordings.  

The recordings from the BGSU Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives’ collection trace the history of the recording industry in the United States, including many standard popular and jazz tunes, as well as more niche materials.

Browse the Bowling Green State University 78rpm Collection at Internet Archive.

Many of the less-common items, such as recordings made by and for immigrant and minoritized groups in the United States, children’s recordings and novelty records, are only available on the original recordings since they were never released on LP, CD or digital streaming services. The collection establishes a digital record of underrepresented artists. It also reflects the cultural and political atmospheres of each time period in which the original material was pressed, meaning that some of the materials included reflect stereotypes and language that may be offensive to today’s listeners. These materials do not represent the values of Bowling Green State University, University Libraries, and Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives.  

Digital versions of these records created through the partnership make it easier for BGSU to provide on-campus access to the recordings while adding those digital files to the thousands already digitized by the Great 78 Project.  

Early phonograph records were made to spin at 78 revolutions per minute (rpm) and were the most common format for sound recordings in the United States from the early 1900s until the early 1950s. Because of their age and the developing practices of the early sound recording industry, these discs require specialized equipment for modern playback and, unlike modern LPs, often require the attention of a professional audio engineer to coax optimal sound quality from the aging records.   

“The pace at which George Blood LC, the vendor working with the Great 78 Project, began processing and digitizing the collection was astounding,” said Dr. David Lewis, a former sound archivist at the Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives. “Within two months, they had digitized and uploaded thousands of recordings to the Bowling Green 78 rpm Collection page. That same work would have taken years longer to complete in-house at BGSU. Working with the Great 78 Project has the added benefit of contributing the University’s materials to a global network of fans, researchers and listeners alongside many other collections of 78 rpm discs.”   

The digital files created from BGSU Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives’ 78 rpm discs will be preserved by the Internet Archive and made available for online listening and downloading from the Internet Archive’s BGSU collection page.  

In addition, staff at the Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives will begin work to preserve copies of selected digital items from the project at BGSU, providing additional safeguards for Ohio-related content and other rare and unique recordings that align with major collecting areas in the sound archives as well as faculty research and teaching.    

The wide access provided by the Internet Archive’s Great 78 Project, combined with the rare and unique material contributed to the project by BGSU, will add to the depth and breadth of material available both on campus and through the Internet Archive.   

Reposted with permission from BGSU News.

Permanent Residents: A Research Guest Post

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This post is part of our ongoing series highlighting how our patrons and partners use the Internet Archive to further their own research and programs.

From Patricia Rose, in her own words:

Tour guide Patricia Rose

In 2019, after retiring from an administrative career at the University of Pennsylvania, I signed up to be a tour guide at Philadelphia’s historic Laurel Hill Cemetery (now Laurel Hill East), the first American cemetery to be named a National Historic Landmark.  With more than 75,000 “permanent residents”, there are lots of opportunities to tour stopping at the graves of fascinating men and women, most from the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century, although there are still some new burials.  It was so much fun I started leading tours at their larger sister cemetery, Laurel Hill West, itself listed on the National Registry of Historic Places, and with permanent residents mostly from the twentieth century to the modern day.

In 2020, COVID made fresh-air cemetery tours quite popular, and I led specialized tours on spiritualism, and on gay and lesbian residents called “Out of the Closet and into the Crypt.”  

Sara Yorke Stevenson

Among the stops on some of my tours was the grave of Sara Yorke Stevenson (1847 – 1921).  She was an Egyptologist, a museum curator, co-founder and leader, author, journalist and fighter for women’s suffrage.  She led a full and eventful life, born in Paris, and ending after her successful efforts to bring medical help to France during World War I, raising the equivalent of $36 million in today’s dollars. 

As part of the cemetery’s educational programming, my fellow tour guide Joe Lex (retired Professor of Emergency Medicine) created a wonderful podcast, All Bones Considered, focusing on both Laurel Hill East and West, and I jumped at the chance to present Stevenson on the podcast.

There is a wealth of information on Stevenson.  As a co-founder, curator, and board chair at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (the Penn Museum), Sara appears in numerous histories of the museum, and in volumes on the beginnings of archaeology in this country.  Luckily, in 2006, Sara’s private papers were discovered in the attic of a Philadelphia home that was being cleaned out for sale.  Those papers are now housed in the Special Collections of the LaSalle University Library, and in the Archives of the Penn Museum.  These I visited and enjoyed reading letters Sara received, a few materials she wrote, and relevant newspaper clippings she saved.

Title page from Maximilian in Mexico (1899) by Sara Yorke Stevenson

But I was still anxious to read Sara’s published writing, but who knew about the wealth of these materials at the Internet Archive?  Her book, Maximilian in Mexico: A Women’s Reminiscences of the French Intervention, 1862-1867, is in multiple copies.  Also her monograph, On Certain Symbols Used in the Decoration of Some Potsherds from Daphnae and Naukratis Now in the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania and various papers Stevenson delivered to the Oriental Club of Philadelphia, such as “The Feather and the Wing in Early Mythology,” and “Early Forms of Religious Symbolism, the Stone Axe and Flying Sun Disc.”

Fortunately, also in the Internet Archive I found relevant issues of the Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Museum from the early days of the twentieth century. (The Pennsylvania Museum became the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and its School of Industrial Art became Philadelphia’s University of the Arts.)  Sara served as a curator at the Philadelphia Museum, and also as the acting director. In the April 1908 edition of the Bulletin, the following appears:

“It is proposed to establish at the School of Industrial Art of the Pennsylvania Museum…a course in the training of curators for art, archaeological and industrial museums, under the supervision of Mrs. Cornelius Stevenson, ScD.”  

Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Museum, Number 22, April 1908.

Museums were being founded throughout the country, and there was a need for trained curators. The next issue of the Bulletin details the twelve lectures in Stevenson’s course.  She begins with The History of Museums, followed by the Modern Museum.  She covers the Museum Building, with attention to light, heat, water, workshops, repair shops and store rooms.  She addresses the Art of Collecting.  In addition to lecturing, she took her students to every museum in the city, met with directors and curators, critiqued exhibits and identified problems of preservation and conservation.  This was the first course in museum studies and curatorship offered in the United States, and luckily I could read all about it on the Internet Archive.

Finally, on the Archive I found John W. Jordan’s 1911 volume, Colonial Families of Philadelphia, which contains invaluable genealogical information on the families of Stevenson and her husband (and many others).

The Internet Archive’s Sara Yorke Stevenson collection was invaluable to me as I prepared my blog post. Going forward, I will turn to the Archive whenever I do research for my cemetery tours.  Thank you to all who have created this marvelous resource.

Should you wish to learn more about Laurel Hill East and West, please visit https://laurelhillphl.com/.  My podcast is part of episode #48, Shattering Some Glass Ceilings, on All Bones Considered, which is available at https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-kty8f-780f6a, on Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.  

Patricia Rose 
Philadelphia, PA