Archivismi: Cassandra Crossing is forever!

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The articles of Cassandra Crossing I'm under license CC BY-SA 4.0 | Cassandra Crossing is a column created by Marco Calamari with the "nom de plume" of Cassandra, born in 2005.

Cassandra is now archived on the Internet Archive… but it doesn't end there!

This article was written on January 6, 2024 from Cassandra

Cassandra Crossing 567/ Archivismi: Cassandra Crossing is forever!

Cassandra Crossing is forever! At the end of this long journey, the column is safe on the Internet Archive and, as long as this most worthy institution lasts, the 24 readers and their children and grandchildren, if they consider it worth it, will have the time to decide whether to read it, and a place to find it.

In previous episodes of Archivists we described the archiving of the Cassandra Crossing column, from number 0 to 566, on IInternet Archive. In order not to further bore the 24 die-hard readers who have followed us up to this point, we summarize two last important details.

One: After the initial archiving, the objects were “enriched” inserting the file “original” of the articles. Decide what the original file it wasn't trivial but, after careful consideration, the html file obtained from medium.com was chosen, appropriately renamed. This file, which therefore represents the verb, it will never be updated. Once this is decided, all other files, lying around laptops, servers, clouds or disks, from today they become only copies of the originals or work files. And it's no small detail.

Two: A few other items, half a dozen in all, reviewing books or translating articles, were further enriched, inserting a copy of the book or texts in the original language. The Browsers of objects Of Internet Archive allows you to browse also all the pdfs thus added. All other files, original or added, must instead be downloaded, as usual, from the file list at the bottom right of the object window.

Now it's a must sum up of the completed work.

Primarily, compared to expectations, the learning phase and the bulk upload phase lasted less than expected, around three-four full days in total. The error correction and archiving refinement phase, however, lasted much, much longer than expected, around three days.

However, the accumulated experience now allows us to perform updates, even massive ones, in a few tens of minutes; even uploading a new set of 4 items took less than a quarter of an hour.

Severely put to the test, Internet Archive It turned out to be a really useful and efficient tool. This is why Cassandra returns for the umpteenth time to remind us that archive.org is a non-profit organisation, which lives on voluntary contributions. Those who use it regularly, or find it useful, or morally agree, should be considered necessary a donation. TANSTAAFL …

Secondly, was all this work really useful and necessary? Cassandra for her part has no doubts but, to justify her choice, it is necessary for her to distinguish the point of view of an author from that of a normal user of the Internet.

For an author the dissemination and preservation of one's work are certainly important. As far as diffusion is concerned, Cassandra at the time made a very radical and well-known choice regarding social media; he uses some social networks only to "publish" his articles, but does not use them to discuss, disseminate or push them in another way. If ever there was value in the threads of words put together by Cassandra, it will be this that will fuel their diffusion. To possibly give this slow process time to take place, long-lasting archiving on Internet Archive it is certainly a necessary condition.

For a citizen of the Internet interacting with Culture (yes, with a capital letter) should be a full-time occupation. Even just as a simple user, correctly contributing to preserving and spreading it is not only possible but necessary.

Do you know any digital or digitizable works that deserve to be preserved? Contribute to this, for example by collecting it, enriching it with data and archiving it in a durable manner.

Do you have expertise in something specific, do you know how to write correctly in a language (Italian, for example) and, when needed, do you have a minimum of self-discipline? Create or expand a Wikipedia page. Archive the best things you've written with the same care you took to create them.

And don't stop there. There are other conservation oases, other electronic libraries, other groups of people dedicated to the preservation of culture and the health of theinfosphere, just as the fake AI they are polluting them with false information. Support one, there's a lot of need for this too

And for this one archiving campaign we finished.

But the Archivists, not those, those never end. Take a look at site; Cassandra already has some ideas…

And on the other hand, to paraphrase Conan the Barbarian, it could be added that “There is always another story…”

Marco Calamari

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