> Internet Archive Switzerland joins a growing group of mission-aligned organizations, alongside Internet Archive, Internet Archive Canada, and Internet Archive Europe. Together, these independent libraries strengthen a shared vision: building a distributed, resilient digital library for the world.
I was interested in the others, but https://www.internetarchive.eu is a horrible corporate-looking site with a hero image, a boast about AI, a carousel of news that won't scroll with doing its slow scroll animation, a huge "meet the team" section with mugshots and boring profiles, social media links, a newsletter signup form, and nothing to say where the actual archive is.
Reading what little information they have there, they aren't a public facing or public serving organization. They seem to provide their services to institutions only:
"working with dozens of European libraries and government agencies to build web collections, Internet Archive Europe prioritized collaboration with cultural heritage organizations to safeguard our collective history."
That website is really struggling. Very tempting to go to a mirror on archive.org to view it :)
This seems very distinct from Internet Archive in the US, I wonder how separate it is.
Internet Archive Canada (I worked there in 2024) operated like it was a subsidiary, even though I think it was technically an independent organization with some shared directors. Same Slack, same archive.org email domain, etc.
IA.ch has Brewster and Caslon on the board.
I suspect that for the political threats of the current decade the different Internet Archive organisations need to start operating more independently, especially when it comes to funding?
Anything that is being built today, based on the assumptions about the future that extend into multiple years, is bound to fade away. Because the "future no longer what it used be". What's the envisaged future context and purpose where this would save the world?
Typical for something made in St. Gallen. A sensible web developer from Zurich interested in the topic would have created this website in just a single HTML and an optional CSS file.
a dev from ZH would've added a blockchain, mobile app and hosted it on an over-allocated kubernetes cluster. 97% uptime and you need a macbook pro so the website doesn't stutter.
> Internet Archive Switzerland joins a growing group of mission-aligned organizations, alongside Internet Archive, Internet Archive Canada, and Internet Archive Europe. Together, these independent libraries strengthen a shared vision: building a distributed, resilient digital library for the world.
"working with dozens of European libraries and government agencies to build web collections, Internet Archive Europe prioritized collaboration with cultural heritage organizations to safeguard our collective history."
If tpb dot org can still exist ...
At least these people tried.
This seems very distinct from Internet Archive in the US, I wonder how separate it is.
Internet Archive Canada (I worked there in 2024) operated like it was a subsidiary, even though I think it was technically an independent organization with some shared directors. Same Slack, same archive.org email domain, etc.
IA.ch has Brewster and Caslon on the board.
I suspect that for the political threats of the current decade the different Internet Archive organisations need to start operating more independently, especially when it comes to funding?
The Slack has (had?) hundreds of guest accounts due to volunteers and allied organizations. It’s an interesting (and cool) institution!