This week in the office, we've been having a tongue-in-cheek conversation about how "the information wants to be free." Y'know, philosophcial musings on the pros and cons of the world shifting into a sample-able, downloadable, share-able culture versus the old cash 'n' carry model. (Before I go any further, I'd like to say that I don't see open source as a threat to artists being paid; MySpace, for instance, has made it abundantly clear how ridiculously overpaid -- and terribly unnecessary -- many record execs are.)
Me, I'm a fan of open source culture, not just because I am a culture junkie, but because I like the idea that art and music have a place to go to transcend the marketplace; where the very best parts of being a human being are allowed to just be, rather than being judged, graded and price-tagged. So it goes without saying that I just about fell over when I learned of the existence of The Internet Archive, an anormous public domain repository of videos, sound files, downloadable docs and even free physics lectures. This is how it describes itself:
"The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library, with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format. Founded in 1996 and located in the Presidio of San Francisco, the Archive has been receiving data donations from Alexa Internet and others. In late 1999, the organization started to grow to include more well-rounded collections. Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages in our collections."
A quick search of St. Louis turned up a digital version of a Billy Murray wax cylinder recording of "Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis," the Ossman Dudley Trio playing "The St. Louis Tickle," and even a Grateful Dead bootleg album recorded here in 1977. There's also a more contemporary video clip of St. Louis-born poet Naomi Shihab Nye reading her work, and a really cool audio file of a guy who taped himself scanning through radio stations one morning in 1954. I was happy to see that Bill Streeter of Lo-Fi St. Louis is represented here too; check out his interviews with the late Arthur Osver and Ernestine Betberg. --Stefene Russell
