"Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms
that have been tried from time to time." So said Winston Churchill,
perhaps not suspecting how frequently the remark would be quoted in the
decades thereafter. Time and experience continue to reveal to us
democracy';s liabilities, but also - at least in certain societies -
the nature of its surprising staying power. Since well before
Churchill';s time, democracy and its workings have been objects of
fascination the world over. So have its central questions, not least
the one of just how to maintain the "informed citizenry" on which its
operation supposedly depends.

The Internet Archive has just launched its own kind of answer in the
form of Democracy';s Library. "A free, open, online compendium of
government research and publications from around the world," the site
offers citizens a way to "leverage useful research, learn about the
workings of their government, hold officials accountable, and be more
informed voters."

Collected from a variety of governmental bodies like the United
States'; National Agricultural Library, Foreign Broadcast Information
Service, and National Institute of Standards and Technology Research
Library - as well as Statistics Canada and Public Accounts of Canada -
its materials were ostensibly produced for the public, but haven';t
always been easy to find. It total, there are more than 500,000
documents in the collection.

"Governments have created an abundance of information and put it in the
public domain, but it turns out the public can't easily access it,"
says Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive. He gives one of
the series of talks that comprise "Building Democracy';s Library," the
launch celebration that took place last week and that you can still
watch in the video above. Its proceedings go into quite a bit of detail
about the efforts of acquisition and organization that went into this
project, as well as the nature of its mission. For this isn';t just an
effort to document democracy, but to strengthen it by making the
information it produces available as conveniently as possible to as
many citizens as possible. And no matter the country of which you count
yourself a citizen, you can start browsing Democracy';s Library here.

Related content:

Historian Timothy Snyder Presents 20 Lessons for Defending Democracy
Against Tyranny in a New Video Series

Why Socrates Hated Democracies: An Animated Case for Why
Self-Government Requires Wisdom & Education

Hannah Arendt Explains Why Democracies Need to Safeguard the Free Press
& Truth … to Defend Themselves Against Dictators and Their Lies

Does Democracy Demand the Tolerance of the Intolerant? Karl Popper's
Paradox

Bertrand Russell's Ten Commandments for Living in a Healthy Democracy

Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities,
language, and culture. His projects include the Substack
newsletter Books on Cities, the book The Stateless City: a Walk through
21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema.
Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.

https://www.openculture.com/2022/10/the-internet-archive-launches-democracys-library.html
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Internetado.
--- You can't judge a book by its movie.