Re: [rumori] Prelinger and his archives


From: Pan (jaimelmATumich.edu)
Date: Mon Jun 04 2001 - 10:57:53 PDT


On Monday, June 4, 2001, at 12:49 PM, Vicki Bennett wrote:

> appeal to the kind of retards that smoke lots of grass and discuss what
> childrens programs they remember from when they are young..

Hey, that's me!

>
> My main regret with Rick Prelinger's list is that it is all American.
> And frankly, THAT is a cliche if anything is.

That's just logistics. It would be to hard to include other cultures. It
would dilute the project even more than it may already be. Also, there
are some judgement issues at play. I think the best representations of
American culture to be included in the archives should be decided by
someone who has actually lived through that culture. and Vise-Versa. If
Rick tried to pull things from other cultures, he may give too
little/too much value to a certain artifact, thereby skewing the
perception of that artifacts value/influence in said culture. The
classic "Archeologists find a Coke bottle" thing. (For non-americans,
this is a thread that has gone on in the past 20 years of American
culture. The idea is... What will archeologists find when they sift
through the remains of this continent and what value will they place on
those objects. Something very insignificant in our culture could be
interpreted as being very significant and vise-versa)

> Yes, sure... but frankly, I'm not a web designer, I make videos and
> don't need any more than a database. If I want a subject I type
> apple/f.

Steev has a good point. One would think that making an archives publicly
available would mean creating an interface that is functional and
efficient. That is not the case with these archives. Keep in mind, the
purpose of the archive is not really for culture-jammers, but the
general public. It's kinda like giving someone a can of food without an
opener :)

Pan
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