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The Fight To Save the Australian Digital Archive Trove (abc.net.au)
Slashdot reader sandbagger writes: A digital archive and research tool developed by the Australian National Archives may be the victim of upcoming budget cuts. Used by an estimated 70,000 users per day, the system may be eliminated thanks to a $20 Million (AUD) budget cut to the agency's budget. Since its 2009 launch, Trove has grown to house four million digitised items, including books, images, music, historic newspapers and maps. Critics of the cuts say that such systems should be considered national infrastructure because there's literally no replacement service.
Message to all Slashdot users:
You are all stupid. To each of you, shut it you dumb potch. I hate you, potty doofus. You're stupid.
Trove is a National Library of Australia project, not the National Archives of Australia.
This should be no surprise to anyone watching the current conservative governments attack on research and academia in australia.
The world renowned CSIRO has been gutted with climate research all but abandoned along with oceanographic research, which is a *big problem* when your an island nation entrusted to the care of the dying barrier reef. The government has stripped funding out of education and universities, removed scientific advisors from all levels of government, and often replaced them with spiral eyed religious idiots who see more value in quoting the bible than quoting peer reviewed research.
And now they are going after the history archives.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
There are no quotes from anyone with authority to back this claim. No Government representatives, no links to authoritative sources, no media quotes - absolutely nothing.
Much more likely, this is a move by the bureaucrats controlling this area, who are having their budgets squeezed because central government (rightly or wrongly) feel they need to spend less, so are planning to cut the most newsworthy part of their service to get attention and protect their budgets.
That is how these things usually go. Publicly funded hospitals always cut patient services before anything else, Schools increase staff/child ratios, Transport cuts services at peak times, etc.
The only thing worse is unionised public servants, who really are on the double-take, since there is little downside to their bosses paying them more as it is 'free' money, and they get the double whammy of working for a votes government, AND having union muscle.
Welcome to another facet of the bleeding dry of the working middle class.
Completely untrue.
It is not even known who will form government, but all parties have pledged to NOT cut this funding.
FUCK EDITOR DAVID. WHAT COMPLETE SHIT FOR BRAINS.
The oldest, continuously-democratic nation in the history of the known universe! Cut another notch for another well-run year, Americans! You deserve it!
Fuck me, this so called 'story' is from March.
Just a few things have changed since then, like the double dissolution and re-election of the entire house of representatives and Senate.
Maybe EditorDavid should lookup what SandBagger means before posting her shit as news?
And from the looks of things, it appears they botched this one too. May as well call this place Trumpdot
$20 million saved by cutting just 22 employees who just archive stuff?
Can some one post me a link to the Australian government job site!
Man am I sick of the myth of bureaucratic waste. Did it ever cross your mind that the reason cuts start in those places is that there were most of the cost is? There's this belief (instilled by right wing think tanks looking to gut the commons for their own profit) that there's this magic "waste" that can be cut without impacting the quality of service and life.
The worst words I've ever heard are "I'm from the gov't and I'm hear to help". It wasn't a man from the gov't saying those (one of those paid my friends insulin to treat his type 1 diabetes), it was a right wing politician looking to cut some billionare's taxes and pushing more bullshit austerity for everyone but themselves.
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How many of them actually want to? Mostly children doing school work, parents and teachers don't really care, might as well just replace with Harry Potter.
Check out #fundTrove on Twitter and the FB page https://www.facebook.com/fundtrove/ for more information about the campaign to save Trove.
How democratic the US may be in practice is a complex question. The biggest problem (greater than voter apathy) is the way the electorate is misinformed and manipulated.
When people face a hefty fine for not voting, as in Australia, it is not surprising that voter turnout is high
Typical Republican... Fuck those stupid idiots voting Democrat, how they must be being manipulated...
Fuck how Slashdot has crashed and burned. Heil Whipslash!
Not 4 million objects, 500 million objects - "Find and get over 499,794,678 Australian and online resources:
books, images, historic newspapers, maps, music, archives and more"
Gore v Bush. Gore had millions more votes.
In the early days of the Thatcher cuts of the 1980s, London Zoo announced that due to government cuts they would have to cull many of their animals.
They got the money....
The name for this in the bureaucratic game is 'bleeding stumps'; you announce cuts that will upset people to force the government to spend more. Just occasionally it can go wrong, when the government toughs it out and you have to go ahead, though this is unlikely as an alternative plan can usually be found.
Be fair. $20 is an enormous amount to an American. Even though such sums are trivial amounts in the advanced nations, just remember that Americans face hardships that are almost unbeleivable.
For instance, did you know that over half of them never visit the dentist ? No, not in a year....ever ! They simply cannot afford to go !
I know ! Believe me, I was as shocked as you probably are now when I found out .
The decision of the UK parliament on a quiet day in the late 60s to index civil service pensions to inflation is believed to be the most expensive decision ever made by the government. It also removed the incentive for civil servants to encourage policies that limited inflation.
If I can put up banner ads. Seriously I don't see how that thing is worth $20M. And yes I realize we're talking about AUD.
with the Australian fascist government/nanny state... burn/vanish culture... good job mates.... :/
upload all the items to the internet archive.
or at the very least, make torrents of them.
>whoops, it's australia. they don't have the internet yet.
For Americans trying to puzzle out Australian Politics, this is the equivalent of the national parks service closing the Washington monument every time there's a cut to the NPS budget.
(Which isn't to say there isn't a real honest-to-fsm funding crisis in Australian libraries - But this is almost certainly a part of the negotiating process)
For instance, did you know that over half of them never visit the dentist ? No, not in a year....ever ! They simply cannot afford to go !
Apparently you don't know that dental coverage isn't part of the universal health care in Australia. Or the UK. Or France. Or Canada. Or anywhere...
Who gives a shit if your teeth are white? Only in America.
Standard slashdot response to any business or service that fails: get a new business model.
If it requires that much money to run then they can charge for it on subscription or per use basis, they can host ads, they can get a corporate sponsor (who will then pass rhe cost back to tax payers anyway), they can find volunteers to run/host it, etc.
You miss the point.
In advanced nations people have enough disposable income to spare to do things like visit dentists every 6 months.
In less fortunate nations they have to choose between medical care and eating that week.
Guess which one you're in ?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/americas-dental-care-crisis/
LOL...... you don't even have teeth to whiten.
Save these treasures like "I Want to Hump my Bluey" before it's too late!