Digital Library

So I've been wanting to post this for awhile. It's not directly related to my aforementioned thesis-ish statement, but it's an informative video. It's a part of the Technology, Education, Design (TED) conferences. I think that these conferences, along with the RSA and others, are brilliant examples of what the digital humanities can offer in terms of education opportunities. More on that later...

 So Brewster Kahle has developed a feasible way in which to digitize all of the written material in the Library of Congress and one day... THE WORLD. I expect some diabolical laughter at that point. Not only that, but it would all be free! (more diabolical laughter).

This is a good example of what the digital humanities can do. His website, The Internet Archive, has everything from Walt Whitman to the Grateful Dead to 16th century prose. How cool is that? The ability to access all of that information from one place... for FREE.

To tie it in, this is also a good example of the preservation of the oral culture-- the video and the archive that is. The video because the TED conference is set up as a series of talks in which people with ideas get onstage and basically just go off about their ideas. Mostly an oral function with a captive audience. The archive by capturing interviews and concerts, such as the Grateful Dead. The Dead was what would come to be known as a "jam band." A whole lot of their stage time at shows was spent jamming out and improvising around songs they already knew. Sound familiar? This meant that no performance was ever exactly alike. However, now Kahle has them stored, forever sealing their permanence in the world of digital print. Just because there's nothing overly fun on this blog, I'm leaving this post with something tasty...