Baby-faced, bespectacled, losing his curly hair, Brewster Kahle (Internet Archive, Internet Bookmobile, International Children's Digital Library, the new Library of Alexandria, etc., etc.) is charming in a father-of-an-8-year-old way. His soft and personable exterior belies an intelligent and passionate man.

His lecture today at the Library was idealistic and inspiring. For an hour, he attempted to persuade us that “universal access to all human knowledge” is not only attainable, but our duty. (Especially to our children. And our grandchildren. I think fatherhood has really affected Brewster.) His wish was for "10 people to walk out of here today and say, I want to play a role."

He gave an overview of the logistics, technical and legal, involved in archiving texts, audio, moving images, television, software, and the Web. Not surprisingly, he is a fan of the public domain, both the abstract concept ("Free to the people") and the actuality (books for everyone). He talked about the new library of Alexandria, and lessons learned from the original, which aimed to gather the entirety of human knowledge under one roof:

Use new technology [e.g., you can store more papyrus scrolls than clay tablets] . . . Make more than one copy. Libraries burn. And they're usually burned by the government . . . Make copies and give them to people as different from you as possible.

Following from that last point, he suggested that digitization should aid repatriation. I frowned, but not because I think it's a bad idea; I think it's absolutely the right thing to do. But I hear (and I've seen) that the Library doesn't concur. (Sometimes with the best of intentions, for instance, based on a fear that after repatriation the items will no longer be made available to scholars.)

He lamented the killing of Napster. If we're to archive so much, and make it so accessible, we need a peer-to-peer network. The free/fee logistics can be worked out, but don't let's kill a whole new technology because of some problems with misuse.

The talk may have been idealistic but it was not empty rhetoric. Check out some of Brewster Kahle's overwhelming successes:
- look at old versions of Web pages with the Wayback machine
- find recordings of live bands at etree.org
- browse ephemeral films at the Prelinger movie archive (FAQ)