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1. Eleanor Saitta (dymaxion@infosec.exchange)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 06:39:11 JST Eleanor Saitta

   I've talked about this in smaller contexts, but I haven't found any traction and time is getting short. When the Nazis passed the enabling laws for the book burning on April 8th, 1933 — exactly 90 years ago in 34 days — the first thing they burnt, the same day, were the archives of the largest trans and gay research institute in the world. When they say now that we didn't exist until after the war, the only reason they can get away with it is that they burned all the accumulated evidence.

   https://assemblag.es/@hugo/109972631252644527

   • Eleanor Saitta (dymaxion@infosec.exchange)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 06:40:12 JST Eleanor Saitta

     in reply to

     The Internet Archive? They could do it. They can't do it for free, and they're better set up for books than looseleaf, so it's not a perfect fit, but there are few parties better equipped to host it. It's not inaccessibly expensive — at my guess, it would cost somewhere around $75k to scan the entire NYC Gay and Lesbian Center archive, one of the biggest. A couple million could probably handle most of the queer archives in the US.

     This doesn't mean they'd be available online — many of these archives have documents that will be sealed for years yet, and online access is politically complex (for good reasons). Metadata is a whole other problem — I'm talking about the kind of scanning process that images the document and gives you a box number it came from, which is horrifying to any serious archivist. But if the alternative is the fire? Yeah, we can actually sort it later.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • Eleanor Saitta (dymaxion@infosec.exchange)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 06:40:13 JST Eleanor Saitta

     in reply to

     Almost all of the gay, lesbian, and trans history archives in the US and elsewhere are held on paper. There's one relatively small commercial collection that's been digitized, but very little else has. Stonewall? The AIDS crisis? All of it can just burn. It's held by community organizations that are doing well to keep it stored and accessible. They aren't in a position to scan it, and even if they could, they aren't set up to manage hosting data that large numbers of fascists want destroyed in a complex and rapidly-evolving risk environment.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • Eleanor Saitta (dymaxion@infosec.exchange)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 06:40:16 JST Eleanor Saitta

     in reply to

     This is Kickstarterable. It's not actually a big ask for the US queer community if the call goes broadly enough.

     I cannot do it. I'm not in the US and do not have the time or flexibility to make it happen. Do you know someone doing queer studies work who had the bandwidth? Send them my way. Or just go do it! I don't need to be involved, I just want to know that in 40 years, they won't be able to say we were never here again.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • Eleanor Saitta (dymaxion@infosec.exchange)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 06:45:18 JST Eleanor Saitta

     in reply to

     To be clear, there are three parts of the work here. First, fundraising and PR for the effort. Second, talking to dozens of individual local archives across the country and negotiating with them about the complex politics of being the scanning don't. Third, arranging the logistics of making the actual scans happen, wrangling volunteer labor to move boxes, and figuring out how to protect material in transit if it can't be scanned on site. This is a lot of time, and needs someone who can commit to it and deliver — and form and manage a team, because it's bigger than one person.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 06-Mar-2023 07:17:28 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Jason Scott

     @dymaxion CC @textfiles