Good morning, this is Geistlist: the aperiodical about time & spaces to be, compiled without schedule by Jacob Ford, for you.
I write from a suitcase-propped iPad on an uptown E train slouching toward JFK, where an AirBus 5 years and a week from its first flight is currently being refueled. It’s taking me most of the way to a former church where the organ pipes have been replaced by server racks: the Internet Archive. They run WayBackMachine, patron saint of deleted tweets.
The Archive is hosting the Library Leaders Forum, where through a butterfly’s flap of chaotic coincidences, I am presenting a little prototype of something I helped build called BRIET, named after Suzanne. Named by Paul Ford.
Led fearlessly by Maria Bustillos, David Moore, aforementioned Paul, and Brewster Kahle, BRIET’s mission is to convince authors they can sell and libraries they can buy—not license à la OverDrive or Kindle but actually good old-fashioned for-keeps sell and buy—digital books. You can borrow a one I designed now, which the Internet Archive bought from us for a $30 check, just as your library buys printed books. If someone else is reading it, wait an hour and it’s yours.