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Google to Digitize National Archives Footage

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the everything-else-to-be-destroyed dept.

Anil Kandangath writes "Google today announced their pilot program to digitize the entire video content of the National Archives and make it globally accessible for free on Google Video. The history of the world should be universally accessible and this is definitely a great step towards making sure that our history is not lost, and that everyone has equal and easy access towards such information. Google has provided some sample videos from the National Archives, such as the 1969 moon landing."

13 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. One by smvp6459 · · Score: 4, Funny

    One small step for google kind?

  2. Like archive.org... by GillBates0 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    ...only a different target collection (archive.org has a "moving images" collection too).

    Archive.org could use their support too...their site performance is usually sluggish, though they already have some biggies sponsoring them, including HP, NSF and the LOC.

    --
    An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
  3. History of the World? by jonbeckett73 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How the hell is the US national archives the "history of the world"?

    It's exactly what it says it is - the "US National Archives" - i.e. the US version of video recorded history, given whatever slant the news networks of the day were putting on things.

    I'm not anti-American (I have American family), but I WISH the US would remember that they are ONE country in a VERY big world.

    --
    Jonathan Beckett http://www.pluggedout.com
  4. I wouldn't go so far by RedHatLinux · · Score: 5, Informative

    as to call it the history of the world, but in all fairness to NARA, it has a great deal of captured documentation from the Second World War and some other sources. So, it's more than a mere history of America.

  5. National Archives by msbsod · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why can't the National Archives provide this service? I would like to see public property in the hand of the public.

    How about productions by PBS and NPR? Where are their digital archives?

    1. Re:National Archives by harryk · · Score: 3, Insightful

      For the same reason that not all jails are run by the government, infrastructure. Google may be able to do it cheaper (possibly free to the government?) as opposed to having the National Archives (sic) do it themselves. It costs time, money, and a ton of resources I'd imagine to transfer this type of material. Now, wether or not Google tries to profit from this archive is another story. Based on the content, I don't think it would be possible to profit from it, except perhaps by licensing the database of the archived material to some vendor that wanted to build a search tool .. or something ... but I'm rambling.

      Jails (quite a number of them) can, and usually are, be privately run. Just like in the IT world were services are outsourced. I'm sure Google is charging someone for this, it just better not be the public, atleast not directly.

      just my 2cents.

      --
      think before you write, it'll save me moderator points.
  6. Re:YAY! by tapo · · Score: 5, Funny
    Here's another way to think about it,

    The 1969 moon landing will be archived along with other gems of human history, such as "Poop Today" and "My ex-girlfriend shows her pussy". Frankly, kudos to Google! I can't wait.

    --
    "Joy is contagious," he said, peering into the microscope.
  7. Re:YAY! by hcdejong · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, the first video I tried ('The eagle has landed 1969') is downloadable as an .avi file. 67 Mb, 480x360 divx. I'd call that pretty good.

  8. Re:YAY! by kevin_conaway · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wow.

    Just..wow. What would make you not complain?

    They're giving you something quite nice for free and you still spit on it!

    AND it got modded insightful!

  9. Re:Censorship? by prozac79 · · Score: 4, Funny
    I may be wrong, but isn't there pr0n in the National Archives?

    You've been browsing through the Clinton years haven't you?

    --
    "Oh dear, she's stuck in an infinite loop and he's an idiot" -Prof. Farnsworth (Futurama)
  10. Low Res Yes, But Crappy? by Kozar_The_Malignant · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I hate to break this to you, but for most of the history of "movies" it's all been pretty low-res. I watched those shots form the moon live in 1969, and it didn't look any better than what I just called called up on my extremely hi-res monitor. The main difference being that in 1969 my college student budget extended to a black and white tube set from the Salvation Army Trift Store. We're talking about an analog video squirt from the moon at a time when I was doing college physics and chemistry with a slide rule and calculus with a pencil.

    These images are extremely important, and having them freely available is priceless. Rading about history is not the same as seeing the people involved. Seeing Churchill give a speech is far better than reading it. Seeing Nixon's Checkers speech is priceless.

    --
    Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
  11. Re:YAY! by Reducer2001 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    We have access to a staggering amount of information - the collected knowledge of the world is at our fingertips. Yay us.

    Yes, yay us. But all this information in the world is useless unless we put it to good use.

    I have a friend who is extremely proud of the mega tool collection he has in his garage. He could do so much with it, like fix cars for extra cash, or maybe build an electronic gizmo with instructions found on the Internet. But he doesn't, so to him those tools are worthless.

    Our collective information is great, now we just need to do something with it!

    --
    When you get to hell -- tell 'em Itchy sent ya!
  12. Valid question... by CarpetShark · · Score: 3, Interesting

    He happens to be wrong regarding the actual resolutions involved, but his question was entirely valid. Please don't knock people for asking questions. If no one asks questions, you only get what the first guy thought of. If everyone questions and debates (in a mature manner) however, you get the best people can come up with.

    Actually, I'd like to ask a related question. Are Google also providing the national archives with their OWN copy, in an open format, which they are free to use as they see fit? I know that's part of what the Libraries involved in Google Scholar/Books have been offered, and that's the only reason I think they should participate. It's all well and good that Google makes this stuff available online for free, but the stuff belongs to us all, and its digitisation shouldn't be restricted to google.com, or any other .com