John Overholt

@overholt@glammr.us · Joined ⁨Nov⁩ ⁨2022⁩

Curator of Early Books & Manuscripts, Houghton Library, Harvard University. Opinions are my own. He/him/his

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John Overholt@overholt@glammr.us

Gizmodo asks “Will We Ever Solve the Problem of Losing Data?”

I love this answer: “I know of one data storage form that can be permanent: a library. Or rather, a world full of libraries. Libraries aren’t perfect storage devices (nothing is), but they are fiercely committed to self-repair. A good library is a collection of people, technologies, and practices that pass an obligation—to remember the things we must remember—from the last generation to the next.”
gizmodo.com/will-we-ever-solve #libraries

GizmodoWill We Ever Solve the Problem of Losing Data?When it comes to recording, tracking, and storing data, the concept of "permanence" can be a lot trickier than you'd expect.
John Overholt@overholt@glammr.us

From the website of the company that’s destroying books to feed them into the ravenous AI maw.

“A physical book is a delivery mechanism for information. Once that information has been extracted and encoded into an AI model, the delivery mechanism has served its purpose. What remains is paper, ink, and binding material. The book is not destroyed. Its value has migrated. The paper returns to the material cycle; the knowledge enters the intellectual one.” news.com.au/technology/online/