*Maybe the last guys to have any books will be a bunch of Irish monks. Which oughta prove pretty handy when the power goes out.
(...)
"Internet Archive is building a physical archive for the long term preservation of one copy of every book, record, and movie we are able to attract or acquire. Because we expect day-to-day access to these materials to occur through digital means, the our physical archive is designed for long-term preservation of materials with only occasional, collection-scale retrieval. Because of this, we can create optimized environments for physical preservation and organizational structures that facilitate appropriate access. A seed bank might be conceptually closest to what we have in mind: storing important objects in safe ways to be used for redundancy, authority, and in case of catastrophe.
"The goal is to preserve one copy of every published work. The universe of unique titles has been estimated at close to one hundred million items. Many of these are rare or unique, so we do not expect most of these to come to the Internet Archive; they will instead remain in their current libraries. But the opportunity to preserve over ten million items is possible, so we have designed a system that will expand to this level. Ten million books is approximately the size of a world-class university library or public library, so we see this as a worthwhile goal. If we are successful, then this set of cultural materials will last for centuries and could be beneficial in ways that we cannot predict.
"To achieve a goal of long-term preservation we have assumed:
"Infrequent access,
"Manage millions of books, records, and movies,
"Adapt to needs of different physical media and collection value,
"Facilitate storage evolution by monitoring existing systems and introducing new ideas,
"Adapt to multiple facilities in different environments, and
"Sustainable from a financial and maintenance perspective.
"Boxes then store approximately 40 books with labeling on the outside
"To start this project, the Internet Archive solicited donations of several hundred thousand books in dozens of languages in subjects such as history, literature, science, and engineering. Working with donors of books has been rewarding because an alternative for many of these books was the used book market or being destroyed. We have found everyone involved has a visceral repulsion to destroying books. The Internet Archive staff helped some donors with packing and transportation, which sped projects and decreased wear and tear on the materials..."
