Ebook archive in case of the apocalypse?

[jblitereader]

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[carld]

i do believe there is a digital archive in Northern Norway (If I'm remembering right). It's an arc of sorts, with stored seeds, copies of genetic material and so on.

[jgaiser]

I think ebooks are going to be the least of my worries in the case of an apocalypse...

[rblover]

There are several, but all will be useless...as there won't be anyone left to read them. The Mad Max kind of survival thing won't happen. Anyone who survives the asteroid, nuke war, or whatever, will soon be wiped out by: disease, starvation, murder, war, etc. The event-asteroid/etc-will be followed by an aftermath which will wipe out all event survivors within a month.

[carld]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

I think ebooks are going to be the least of my worries in the case of an apocalypse...

Tchh... priorities.

Plus, I think the plan is to save important reference texts and great works of literature rather than eBooks as such. I think they also have everything in paper, but it's been a year or two since I read about it.

[ardeegee]

If said archive exists, I hope they stockpile plenty of spare pairs of glasses.

[J. Strnad]

Burgess Meredith agrees!

It isn't all or nothing. Humankind could be decimated and still survive.

I think the best hope for the ebooks is that they aren't stored in any one place, but that there are SD cards all over the world filled with thousands of titles.

[jblitereader]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

Burgess Meredith agrees!

It isn't all or nothing. Humankind could be decimated and still survive.

I think the best hope for the ebooks is that they aren't stored in any one place, but that there are SD cards all over the world filled with thousands of titles.

Yeah, and if after the apocalypse we find out that we can't read a single of those ebooks that survived because of DRM's, I will seek out surviving publishers and shove red hot pokers up their butts.

[speakingtohe]

apocalypse?
The definitive excuse for the ebook hoarder

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

Burgess Meredith agrees!

It isn't all or nothing. Humankind could be decimated and still survive.

Of course. If 1 in 10 people were to die (which is what being "decimated" means), why wouldn't the remaining 90% survive?

[FlorenceArt]

I do hope there will always be paper copies around, because how long will we have the technology to be able to read e-books in the formats we have now? Even without an apocalypse scenario, that's something that worries me. And if most of humanity is wiped out, yes, I do believe that the survivors' priorities will be elsewhere for at least a few generations. Like getting away from all those unattended nuclear plants and assorted dangerous materials stockpiles, for one thing

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by carld

i do believe there is a digital archive in Northern Norway (If I'm remembering right). It's an arc of sorts, with stored seeds, copies of genetic material and so on.

I believe it is in Svalbard, the cold is used as a shield of protection. I don't think its existence is based on some concept of apocalypse but rather to avoid gradually extinguishing various species.

[mjhudston]

Of course none of this matters, because the EMP released by such an event, would more than likely render inoperative all the electronic equipment and power stations, supplies etc!

We should be storing all literature etc in hardcopy form.

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by mjhudston

Of course none of this matters, because the EMP released by such an event, would more than likely render inoperative all the electronic equipment and power stations, supplies etc!

We should be storing all literature etc in hardcopy form.

That's only in the case the "event" is a thermo-nuclear bomb, right?

[Adoby]

Originally Posted by rblover

There are several, but all will be useless...as there won't be anyone left to read them. The Mad Max kind of survival thing won't happen. Anyone who survives the asteroid, nuke war, or whatever, will soon be wiped out by: disease, starvation, murder, war, etc. The event-asteroid/etc-will be followed by an aftermath which will wipe out all event survivors within a month.

I can agree about the Mad Max thing. But the rest?

If there is an aftermath, survivors after the initial effects, then some will survive. Largely depending on where they live (far away from the immediate effects), how many they are and how prepared they are. City life will most likely go, but subsistence farming may still be possible.

Humanity has most likely been near extionsion before. See for instance the therory about the Toba supereruption.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory

And I see my e-library as a possible resource in the aftermath. Not least because it is highly portable and easy to copy. But the readers are still not quite good enough. But they are getting closer ...