Daily Archives: April 7, 2005

Brewster Kahle

Posted on April 7, 2005 by Michael Pate| Comments Off

bq.Search-engine wiz and dot-com multimillionaire Brewster Kahle founded the archive here in 1996 with a dream as big as the bridge: He wanted to back up the Internet. There were only 50 million or so URLs back then, so the idea only seemed half-crazy. As the Web ballooned to more than 10 billion pages, the archive’s main server farm-hidden across town in a data center beneath the city’s other big bridge-grew to hold a half-million gigabytes of compressed and indexed pages. – Paul Boutin Of course, if you read the entire article, you will find that webpages is only a small portion of what the Internet Archive is all about. For further listening, download a copy of his speech, Universal Access to All Knowledge. It touches on many issues that will impact libraries over the next decade or so.

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Posted in Biographies

Storms Warning

Posted on April 7, 2005 by Michael Pate| Comments Off

Ronda Storms is a member of the Hillsborough County Commission. And apparently is so bored with her position that she constantly finds things to raise an uproar about. This week it is about the selection policy for DVD materials in the Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library.
bq.Led by Storms, commissioners on Wednesday recommended the library spend a larger portion of its DVD budget on educational videos and less on pure entertainment. The proposal still needs to be considered by the library board, library director and County Administrator Pat Bean and return to commissioners for final approval. They also need to define what is educational. The proposal passed 6-1. – Ellen Gedalius Education is certainly an important role for public libraries. But it not our only role. Library Director Joe Stines explained that there are three: education, information and recreation. It is a delicate balance, but one we should all strive to maintain. Because all three are equally important.

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Posted in Public-Libraries