[ih] reinventing the wheel, was Internet History Lives on the Internet?

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

> Personally, I have more faith in libraries with librarians who have
> been thinking about long term archiving.

People miss two fundamental concepts wrt P2P:

1) BitTorrent is not an archive; it's an index.

2) BitTorrent is not a catalog.

In relation to (1), that the link says I am downloading "Faster
Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" doesn't mean I'm not really getting "My Fair
Lady".  And if I don't grok the merits of either movie, how do I
know I've been spoofed?  (Fake Movie!)

As for (2), the Vancouver Public Library is as horrible as BitTorrent
when it comes to categorizing content.  In my younger days, when I
wanted to research the process of making a long-lasting knife blade,
I would head for the 671-2 section of the stacks.  671 being the
metalworking group, and 672 the more specific iron-related applications
section.  And all of this under 6XX "technology" classification.
Do you think the Vancouver Public Library lets you search by Dewey
classification online?  Pah.  You can search their website from top
to bottom; the word Dewey appears nowhere.

And why not?  If you want to find something, just search.  WTF not?
Google knows all, don't you?  Why would you ever need help to find
a keyword to search for something you know nothing about, but are
looking to learn?  Just enter the keywords for the solution you
already know, right?

I am looking at you, Vancouver Public Library.

And every other library that sucks up to that horrible BiblioCOmmons
software.  I can't type a Dewey number ANYWHERE in your website.  Are
you proud of this?

--lyndon