Fire Damages Internet Archive Scanning Center

There was a fire at the Internet Archive’s San Francisco scanning center recently. The good news is that no one was hurt and no data was lost. Their main building wasn't affected except for damage to one electrical run which caused them to lose power to some servers for a while.

The San Francisco Fire Department was fast and great. This episode should remind everyone that digitizing and making copies are good strategies for both access and preservation. The Internet Archive has data in multiple locations, so even if their main building had been involved in the fire they still would not have lost the amazing content they have worked so hard to collect.

An early estimate shows they may have lost about $600,000 worth of high-end digitization equipment and they will need to repair or rebuild the scanning building. It's heartening to know that an outpouring of support brought in over 1500 donations totaling over $60,000 in the first two days alone.

For more information and to learn how you can help them keep this important project going, read Brewster Kahle's posts on the Internet Archive blog.

To make a donation, CLICK HERE.