[tivert]

> I go to my local library and ask to see their microfilm to look up a story. They tell me they got rid of all their microfilm for a particular newspaper (The Denver Post, fwiw). I ask why, and they tell me, "you can just get that on the internet now." When I tell them that Newspapers.com no longer has any access to that newspaper, they just shrug.

That's just awful and irresponsible. Someday someone's going to do something like that, blithely assuming there's another copy somewhere, but it will turn out they junked the last one.

[scarface74]

Random: For the longest, newspaper.com (no “s”) redirected to daringfireball.com. It wasn’t Gruber (the site owner) astroturfing.

Some random guy bought the domain years ago and didn’t have anything he wanted to do with it so he just redirected to Gruber’s site.

The only evidence I can find of it now is here:

https://feedreader.com/observe/newspaper.com

[roenxi]

Here in Australia I once saw a community choir shut down over the combination of copyright and public liability. I haven't seen a second choir so I don't know how common that is.

While destroying the last microfilm copy is a tragedy, I'm less confident that the person is being irresponsible. Preserving culture legally is difficult to do. Some people have weird beliefs that the law is somehow advisory and common sense rather than the law.

[tivert]

> While destroying the last microfilm copy is a tragedy, I'm less confident that the person is being irresponsible. Preserving culture legally is difficult to do. Some people have weird beliefs that the law is somehow advisory and common sense rather than the law.

At least in the US, there's a very longstanding practice of local libraries maintaining newspaper archives (as bound volumes* or microfiche/microfilm). I'd be super-super surprised if there was any legal issue to doing that.

* For pop-culture example, see Back to the Future 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfmdW3hiu8w.

[roenxi]

I was also surprised. Australia has a long tradition to community choirs. Most cultures do, in fact.

If people are destroying the last copy of something, copyright was probably involved. That is what copyright does; stops people creating copies of things. Otherwise there'll be some eccentric acting as an archivist - look how hard the content creators have to fight to stop their work being publicly recorded on the internet. The system is designed to stop the sort of people who do that, which absolutely includes library archivists. They'll be in the crosshairs of some lobbyist.

[tivert]

> If people are destroying the last copy of something, copyright was probably involved.

I think you're trying to inject a copyright angle without any kind of evidence it's significant in this scenario. And it doesn't apply: https://guides.library.oregonstate.edu/copyright/libraries.

I think (at least when it comes to public libraries), there are also other factors at play. For instance: a frequent self-understanding that they're not an archive (which is only somewhat true), and a motivation to "serve their customers" by focusing on "popular" services, and a misunderstanding of what the internet is.

[roenxi]

And yet, by the magic of there being only one way it could happen, the day that someone destroys the last copy of the microfilm will be because copyright prevented the people who wanted from keeping a copy from doing so.

It isn't like there is any shortage of people thinking that sort of record is worth preserving. Lots of people do. There is a shortage of people legally aloud to make copies. Because, as mentioned, copyright.

[bombcar]

Music licensing is an absolute bitch, which is why many MANY church choirs all sing from the same book, because that book has been vetted and they have performance licenses.

The other option is to only sing music from before the turn of the last century.

[maxwell]

At least the law isn't the law in the U.S., it defers to the Constitution, and that in turn to the sovereign (the People).

[tialaramex]

This would be the US Constitution as interpreted by a half dozen corrupt weirdos who were selected for their partisan bona fides and can't be dismissed for any reason, right?

[maxwell]

Propose an amendment.

[tialaramex]

An amendment to the constitution ... that will just be disregarded by those same people?

Also, I'm an old man, no amendments written after I was born have passed.

[krapp]

Try asserting your sovereignty over the laws of the land in a courtroom and see what happens.

[maxwell]

Jury nullification?

[at_a_remove]

Libraries are under continual space pressure. Books come in, the buildings stay the same size. Thus, "weeding."

And of course libraries have succumbed to a kind of identity panic, "Who are we in the Age of Google?" Everything is online, so ... let's just pitch this stuff to make room.

Make room for what? Again the identity panic: maybe we are a community center, so let's set aside space for this and that and the other thing, which is still more pressure on the extant catalog.

And so those big shelves of microfilm just sit there, haven't been looked at in ages, might as well pitch 'em. It's all online now. Now. Maybe not later.

I worked in an academic library for a long time. These problems are endemic.

[rationalist]

> you can just get that on the internet now

"Where it's easy for someone to edit. Do you by chance, have a copy of 1984 I can check out?"

[AlecSchueler]

People are already doing that every day.