Internet Archive building damaged by fire, destroys $600,000 of equipment

[theblah12]

[img]http://images.bit-tech.net/news_images/2013/11/internet-archive-fire/article_img.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.the-digital-reader.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/ia11-500x337.jpg[/img]
[img]http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/lt/lt_cache/thumbnail/400/img/photos/2013/11/06/52/59/sf_fire_1106.jpg[/img]

[quote=BBC][b]The non-profit organisation behind the Internet Archive has made a plea for donations following a fire at its building in San Francisco.[/b]

The group runs the popular Wayback Machine, an archive of 364 billion web pages, designed to show people what sites looked like in years gone by.

As well as the Wayback Machine, the group also runs other archiving schemes - such as TV Search and Borrow, a collection of US national news programmes that can be obtained, for free, on DVD.

[b]No data was lost, a spokesman said, but the damage was estimated at $600,000 (£373,000).[/b]

On the group's blog, founder Brewster Kahle wrote: [b]"This episode has reminded us that digitising and making copies are good strategies for both access and preservation.

"We have copies of the data in the Internet Archive in multiple locations, so even if our main building had been involved in the fire we still would not have lost the amazing content we have all worked so hard to collect."[/b][/quote]

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24848907]Source[/url]
[url=https://archive.org/donate/]Donaion Page[/url]

[SKJynx]

Thank God no data was lost. In reality, it's almost like a museum. The internet is such a huge part of our culture that it really does deserve it's own historical archive. And just like any other ancient relic, once we lose this it's probably gone forever.

[sloppy_joes]

Do they have insurance?

[Glitchvid]

Oh fuck, shit, shit, shit. They didn't lose any data; but this could seriously fuck them over for future plans.

Archive.org is a seriously underfunded and overlooked but important as fuck entitity. I'd urge anyone who thinks preserving internet history is important to donate; they even accept bitcoins.
(Their bitcoin address is: [url=https://blockchain.info/address/17gN64BPHtxi4mEM3qWrxdwhieUvRq8R2r]17gN64BPHtxi4mEM3qWrxdwhieUvRq8R2r[/url]) You can check their website for other methods (Also, incase you don't trust thats their address, you can check)

[fruxodaily]

I'd honestly give them some money but I'm broke right now, they seriously deserve it

[Bastet]

I know a guy who works there. He posted pictures of the fire on facebook and after images

[TacError]

Sad to see something unfortunate happen to them. They scanned tons of 19th century books that would have been really hard to obtain otherwise (due to rarity and price).

[JumpinJackFlash]

Thanks for posting this, I was entirely unaware of this project. I'll be sending in a donation to help these fine folks get back on their feet, as soon as I get money in my account.

I needed to make a deposit anyway, it's been awhile.

[Foxtrot200]

My heart sank when I read the title. I'm so glad the data is fine.

[Durrsly]

I hope they make a speedy recovery, we can not afford to lose this.