when i was a kid i used to look at something inocuous-- a rock, a piece of trash, a grocery store receipt --and think, "i'm probably the only person who cared to think about this thing, in this moment, for longer than a microsecond. what if i am the last person who ever saw this? touched it? thought about it?" and in a lot of ways, i think this was the beginning of my love for archivism and history.
it should come as no surprise that i am obsessed with archiving things (my site is, quite literally, called "The Archives"), for a lot of reasons. some political, some personal. but at the end of the day, i think knowledge of all types should be free and accessible for everyone. so i hoard as much of it as i can.
i have two main focuses: music, and local happenings. some things i typically will archive include:
my archives:
note that not everything in these lists are uploaded by me (although a good chunk are). i also use these lists to save items i find interesting from other users.
"Those with access to these resources — students, librarians, scientists — you have been given a privilege. You get to feed at this banquet of knowledge while the rest of the world is locked out. But you need not — indeed, morally, you cannot — keep this privilege for yourselves. You have a duty to share it with the world. And you have: trading passwords with colleagues, filling download requests for friends.
Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly by. You have been sneaking through holes and climbing over fences, liberating the information locked up by the publishers and sharing them with your friends.
But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It’s called stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn’t immoral — it’s a moral imperative. Only those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.
[...]
We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access."
—Aaron Swartz, Guerilla Open Access Manifesto