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Do you ever use the Internet Archive for anything? (piefed.jeena.net)

submitted 4 months ago by jeena@piefed.jeena.net to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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Do you guys ever use the Internet Archive for anything? I agree that they're doing a great job archiving things, but realistically, through time most of things which happened have been forgotten.

I use the Wikipedia like once a week to look something up, but I only ever used the Internet Archive to look at a early version of my own website. But never for anything else. But perhaps I'm missing out on something?

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[-] norimee@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago

I use it all the time for books and audiobooks.

But I must say, that I read A LOT and don't want to always read the new and popular stuff. Especially if you leave mainstream and the big markets (US, UK and Europe) you can find a lot of great books by authors from smaller countries that are not available otherwise. Often the translations are out of print and never been available as ebook and the scanned and digitised version by the Internet Archive is the only one I can find.

Ever tried to read the Chinese classic epos "Journey to the west" in full (not just the monkey King story)? It's in the archive. Or have you heard of one of Surinames most important writers Cynthia McLeod or read the poetry collection of Guyanese writer Grace Nichols? Or a translation of Syrias most important Poet Adunis? The Internet Archive has it all. You just have to look for it.

It also has the free domain classics from several other projects all in one place. And not to forget old movies and television. I recently watched "9 to 5" the feminist classic with Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lilly Tomlin there recently because no other streaming service had it.

Of course if you are only into blockbusters and bestsellers, the Internet Archive can't help you there.

this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2024

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