Museums keep real-world images safe for future generations. But what about digital photos? Filecoin Foundation Today it intensifies its efforts to preserve cultural artifacts in digital form using its own decentralized network technology.
The Filecoin Foundation (FF) today announced the addition of new cultural datasets to the Filecoin network from renowned institutions, including the Smithsonian, Flickr Foundation, Internet Archive, and MIT Open Learning.
With more than 500,000 culturally significant digital artifacts protected on the network, Filecoin is redefining data preservation in an era where the integrity, provenance and robustness of information are more important than ever, Filecoin said.
Modern innovation thrives on data; It is a fundamental building block for progress across industries, including artificial intelligence (AI). However, as reliance on data increases, so do the risks of relying on centralized storage systems. Natural disasters, Human errorand power failure The company noted that this could jeopardize access to important information, potentially threatening the preservation of culture and history.
Decentralized networks like Filecoin are revolutionizing how data is stored, verified, and shared. Filecoin uses cryptographic proofs to ensure data integrity, verifying that files remain intact and unchanged over time. Filecoin distributes data across a decentralized global network, ensuring that information remains accessible to everyone even if parts of the network are offline.
The new datasets uploaded to Filecoin include a rich array of cultural and educational resources, ranging from some of the oldest audio recordings in history to a vast repository of photographs that capture the essence of human history. By leveraging decentralized storage infrastructure, these institutions are pioneering a new era of digital preservation, ensuring priceless resources are protected for future generations. New datasets on the network include:
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is uploading nearly 300 digital audio recordings from Alexander Graham Bell to IPFS and Filecoin. Bell is best known for patenting the first practical telephone in 1876, and was also a pioneer of sound recording.
Experimental recordings from his Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C., dating from 1881 to 1889, are among the oldest recordings ever made. The surviving collection of about 300 records was considered unplayable until new technologies of the 21st century made it possible for them to be heard.
The Flickr Foundation contributes more than 1,000 views to Flickr Commons, a 17-year-old program focused on making photographic collections from our cultural institutions more accessible to the public. Launched in 2008 in collaboration with the Library of Congress, Flickr Commons now includes more than 2 million images from 120 cultural institutions around the world. The Flickr Commons 1k collection includes images from the US National Archives, NASA, the Library of Congress, and the George Eastman Museum.
The Internet Archive will upload the 2024 end-of-term web archive to the Filecoin network along with its pre-end-of-term crawl data. Since 2008, the End-of-Term Web Archive Project has collected and preserved U.S. government websites at the end of presidential administrations. The project captures websites at three distinct points during the transition period: pre-election, post-election, and post-inauguration. Internet Archive Canada will support archiving for the Canadian federal government’s transition period in 2025.
MIT Open Learning and OpenCourseWare (OCW) have uploaded select content to the Filecoin network, including foundational courses such as Single variable calculus and Introduction to algorithmsClimate and sustainability topics such as Urban energy systems and policies and D-Energy LaboratoryTo support an organization’s needs for robust, tamper-resistant archiving and alternative distribution channels.
Starling Lab recently launched a 22 petabyte Filecoin storage node at the University of Southern California (USC) Libraries. The primary collections in storage include portions of the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive, including testimonies of atrocity survivors; Multiple photojournalism projects; and 3D/VR scanning of historical sites. Starling Lab is an academic research center based at Stanford University and the University of Southern California that specializes in securing the integrity of historical, legal, and journalistic archives.
These organizations work with Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW), a non-profit sister organization to the Filecoin Foundation that works to advance the decentralized web through education, research, and development.
“Our mission is to preserve humanity’s most important information,” Marta Belcher, president and CEO of the Filecoin Foundation and FFDW, said in a statement. “We are pleased to collaborate with these institutions to ensure that culturally significant datasets are permanently preserved using powerful decentralized storage systems.”
The Filecoin Foundation remains committed to its mission of preserving humanity’s most important information. These new datasets highlight the transformative potential of decentralized technologies in preserving and accessing important information, addressing the increasing importance of data integrity, provenance, and longevity in today’s digital age.
