Is all human knowledge in the Internet?

Like a nerdier Nostradamus, h.g. Wells predicted virtually on the Internet in his essay, 1937 "world brain: the idea of a permanent world."

In it, Wells describes this futuristic encyclopedia (enabled in the spirit of revolutionary microfilm) as a "world body 'the spirit of the world together, drag' the not so much competition for the universities, as a supplementary and coordinating in addition to their educational activities-are." at the global level

And in many ways, Wells' vision has been realized to the Internet. Digital Archives scattered House countless books, documents, records, photographs and films, which together represent an outbreak of human knowledge between servers around the world.

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"The (h.g wells) essay collection is utopian, but really, if you try a look at what we all, this idea of a permanent world encyclopedia, he has it is a template for what happened, really," said Paul Jones, Director of ibiblio digital archives and associate professor of computer science at the University of North CarolinaChapel Hill.

"The real question is, can ever be carried out, and the answer is"No"-but why not try?" Jones, told Discovery News.

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Have for the last 18 years, Jones and other work with ibiblio was collections, as well as "vernacular work," which are working in the public domain freely accessible digital preservation. A well-known example of vernacular work is the collection of songs composed by Roger McGuinn, former leader of the the Byrds, he published under a Creative Commons license agreement together.

Although establishing digital libraries, server depends on space, tug-of-war over how many happens real know works (books, recordings, other documents) accessible online land between librarians and lawyers.

Why? One word: copyright.

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"One of the primary roadblocks (to the development of digital libraries) copyright,", said Maura Marx, a fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center and lead organizer of the initiative digital public library of America. "One size fits all nature crashes all work as if they will remain economically viable for a long time." "Not everything is"Harry Potter"-is not intended, for example, for distribution of scientific works after a first period of commercial distribution, or for any other deviation from locking things for life plus 70 years."

While the legal system of copyright issues hashes, initiatives such as digital collections at universities and other institutions, bringing together to a single resource could be establishing the digital public library of America of many different archiving.

The European Council, Norway, and the Netherlands have already significant progress towards national and international digital databases as follows, and Marx thinks that awareness and use of wealth know a similar resource in the United States works online archived would expand.
This type of non-profit resource is significantly different from commercial digital repositories like Google Books, says Marx.

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"Amazon and Google are driven in the trade and have a responsibility to shareholders, the bottom line," said Marx. "A know Commons can help to create other types of transactions."

But apart from legal and cooperative issues, what is all this archiving the current sum? Despite copyright restrictions, is how much human knowledge in the Internet at this point - is this even quantifiable?

Because the Internet from a changing number of servers, the exact amount of data is online pinning virtually impossible.

"In any case, you can increase the amount of data on the Internet simply by turning to a new server, the every second of the day is done," said Jonathan Strickland, tech expert at HowStuffWorks.com and co-host of the TechStuff podcast.

Really, the only certainty about the quantity of human knowledge is online that you will constantly grow.

"I would compare it with the question 'How many books in the library are?'", Strickland said. "If you take the question literally check inventory and all books, which was to have been borrowed from the library and subtract the second figure from the first, and at this time, more books are returned and ausgeliehendie figure is meaningless."

Figure: Images.com/Corbis

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