How Teachers Are Handling School Closures

Plus—games of yesteryear, a Supreme Court victory, and one man's obsession with Isaac Asimov.

Archive    Donate     Blog     Jobs     Volunteer     April 2020 Browsing the Archive Teaching in the Time of Corona While schools & libraries are closed due to COVID-19 and millions of books lie beyond reach, teachers, librarians and students have been borrowing books in our National Emergency Library. We've heard from hundreds of you with requests and thanks; many educators have reached out and told us about the challenges they're up against. Check out some of the stories from teachers on the frontlines of schooling from home! HEAR FROM TEACHERS Pioneering the Oregon Trail & Beyond So suddenly, you find yourself at home with your 6, 8, and 11-year-olds, 24/7. You are their parent and now, educational aide. Relief may be in sight. Your son's 6th grade teacher has assigned something fun: play the classic 1992 video game The Oregon Trail. But how do you do that? How can you play a vintage computer game in your browser? These are the cries for help we're hearing across the land. Never fear! For new settlers, here's a guide to exploring the wilds of our vintage computer games. WESTWARD HO Supreme Court Victory on Copyright This week the US Supreme Court handed down a victory to the Public's Archivist, Carl Malamud in Georgia, et al v. Public.Resource.org. But the true winners are citizens everywhere: states must now provide official codes and annotations free to the public. After battling through the courts for almost five years, Malamud was ready to resume his work with the Internet Archive, making these annotated codes accessible to the public, for free. The New York Times quoted Malamud saying, "Now it's time to get to work and make the law more useful and accessible to the people."  LEARN MORE An Obsession with Asimov Learn how one man's obsession with the prolific science fiction writer Isaac Asimov set off alarms at the Internet Archive. What started as a probe into suspiciously rapid book borrowing uncovered a tale of devotion that is sure to make you smile.  EXPLORE ASIMOV All Aboard! Looking for some soothing background noise? Miss the good old days of steam power? Love trains? This album of steam engine sounds is for you! Recorded in the 1950's—as many steam locomotives were making their final journeys—this field recording captures all the bells, whistles, hisses, rattles, and chugs of old-time rail travel. Check it out here!   Corporate Propoganda, Circa 1918 This little book is your picture-and-prose Trip Thru the Larkin Factories at Buffalo, New York. If you posses an interest in the Advertising of Yesteryear, wish to learn more about the Modern and Advanced manufacturing processes of Soap and Other Goods, or enjoy old texts with Gratuitous Capitalization, please accept this, our hearty invitation to read on! Whenever somebody makes a purchase from Better World Books, they have the opportunity to round up their purchase to donate to the Internet Archive. In the past few months, this initiative has raised over $11,000 from thousands of individual purchases—the average donation is just 45 cents! Every little bit counts, and all those nickels and dimes go a long way towards providing books and other materials to people who need them. So THANK YOU to Better World Books, our supporters, and lovers of literacy everywhere! What We're Reading MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: The race to save the first draft of coronavirus history from internet oblivion CSPAN: Communicators at the "State of the Net" Conference with Brewster Kahle THE PENN: Libraries aid students' educational needs online CNN: New HHS spokesman made racist comments about Chinese people in now-deleted tweets REALCLEAR POLITICS: How COVID-19 Has Transformed What We Hear and See on TV VIDEO: How The Internet Archive Is Preserving Our Online World, One Webpage at a Time ARCHIVE-IT: New report: Advancing Art Libraries and Curated Web Archives If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation to the Internet Archive, we would greatly appreciate your support. Thank you for helping us provide Universal Access To All Knowledge.  DONATE TO THE INTERNET ARCHIVE Share Tweet Forward You are receiving this newsletter because of your relationship with the Internet Archive. Review our Privacy Policy Our mailing address is: Internet Archive 300 Funston Avenue San Francisco, CA 94118 Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.