Internet Archive's San Francisco Home Badly Damaged By Fire

Rambo Tribble writes "The San Francisco building housing the Internet Archive, and its popular Wayback Machine, has suffered a serious fire. While no archived data was destroyed, materials awaiting archival were. Rebuilding will be a major undertaking, and the group is soliciting donations."

Re:almost could have been like 48 B.C.

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't that simple. The items that burned could have been originals -- that had not yet been digitized.

Re:almost could have been like 48 B.C.

[Warbothong]

the modern day Library of Alexandra burning

That's precisely why the Library of Alexandra hosts a mirror of the Internet Archive http://archive.bibalex.org/ [bibalex.org]

Re:Fire insurance

[sandytaru]

Fire insurance is usually inadequate to cover the total losses. It'll cover the value of the building as-is, and the loss of the hardware and physical items things were stored on. If they want to rebuild on the same site, it will often cost a lot more depending on the condition of the building.

In Athens, GA, the Georgia Theater burned down a few years back. They opted to rebuild on-site and use as much of the shell of the old building as possible, but fire insurance covered maybe half of the final cost because the old building was about fifty years out of code and needed major work anyway. They're still accepting donations to help out with the cost of the rebuild, and probably will owe on the new mortgage for a long, long time.

Re:Why San Francisco?

[geekoid]

overdue as in, past the statistical average point.
It's not like a clock.

And they back up out of state.

The Rocky Mountains have storms, floods, and a lack of talent.

Re:almost could have been like 48 B.C.

[morgauxo]

yes. archive.org archives a lot more than just the internet.