Slashdot Mirror
Tensions Between Archivists and 'Occupy' Protesters Over Preserving the Movement
An anonymous reader writes "At one point an NYU librarian literally got into a shouting match with a protester at an Occupy protest, trying to make the case for why a digital record should be kept of photos, videos, audio recordings, posters, and other materials, so future scholars and activists can recount what happened. Academics are taking unusual steps to preserve the protesters' stuff, including 'distributing postcards promoting archiving at protests, developing automated systems to download photos posted online, and asking participants to vote on which images are most important for the historic record.'"
I thought people were afraid of being recognized by police using the archives.
Turns out they're arguing over whether to call themselves the Judean People's Front or the People's Front of Judea.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Perhaps none that we can see today, but I can imagine why there's such a push to archive absolutely everything that happened with these protests.
Maybe I'm being a bit too hopeful, but some time decades in the future, perhaps these protests will be seen as 'what got the ball rolling' to vast, sweeping changes.
You never know what the future holds, but I for one hope that these protest started something bigger than they could ever have imagined. It just takes a while for that snowball to grow at first.
And IF those protests were indeed the start of eventual mass changes... would it not be beneficial to have documented as much as we can on them?