The Library of Alexandria Inside a San Francisco Church.

The Library of Alexandria inside a restored San Francisco church.

This is an apt way to put the work Internet pioneer, Brewster Kahle, and his team are building in the form of the Internet Archive.

As Jesse Rogala of the San Francisco Standard reports, for over twenty-five years, the Archive, operating out of a former Christian Science church in San Francisco, has been creating an indelible record of humanity’s transition into the digital age

“There, Kahle’s small team of digital librarians work tirelessly to acquire and archive documents and data from across the world, seeking to construct a modern Library of Alexandria through funding from various foundations, such as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Council on Library and Information Resources and the National Science Foundation.”

The Archive’s work hasn’t been without controversy, adds Rogala.

“Since its primary goal is to provide access to the ever-growing well of digitized knowledge, questions (and lawsuits) have arisen about the Archive’s legal right to distribute copyrighted works without permission or licensing from the original creators.”

You can watch the below video from the Standard to learn about the Archives’s tremendous growth, Kahle and, as Rogalla says, “discover the eccentric way the Archive honors those who dedicate their lives to cataloging human knowledge.“