Internet Archive and some books I’ve read

Hrrrrrr… The Internet Archive has been down for, like, three weeks now. I’ve been going on it daily to see if it’s came back. Yesterday, I was pumped to find the website looking the same as usual! It had to be back! It was, in fact, not back… It’s just in a ‘read-only’ mode. I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean. You can’t read any of the books, not even the ones that are always available. It’d be more accurate to describe it as a ‘viewing-only’ mode, like what they used for the Wayback Machine when the service started running again.

I only used IA for reading. My favorite thing to do was use the audiobook feature so I could have the book read out to me with a robotic voice. I’d also read the book on my own from time to time. My go-to voice was the original Irish Moira voice for IOS. Her voice was crisp, fast, and to-the-point. I discovered the voices the Edge browser has to offer, and I’m ecstatic to use them once you can read books on IA again.

It’s hard for me to read a book from front-to-back. I have read a few on IA. One book I read was By Her Own Admission: A Lesbian Mother’s Fight to Keep Her Son. An excellent book that was published in 1977, almost forty years before gay marriage rights for all states was allowed in the United States. It took me a bit to finish it, but it was good overall… Also a bit of a product for its time.

One thing I like about reading is you really get to know the characters, fictional or nonfictional. I’d argue way more so than you would in a show or movie. I’d be in my bathtub listening to the book through my waterproof speaker, and I’d just be so disappointed in the woman’s older son. A kid who was the same age as me at the time of the book (seventeen, I read it last year) who’s from the mid 70s. :]

After I finished the book, I took to the internet to find all the people involved in the book. Creepy? Maybe. I found them through Facebook. The lesbian couple aren’t together anymore and broke up shortly after the book was published, but the mother is married to another woman. She has to be in her eighties now. She either owns or co-owns an ice cream parlor. She lives far away from where the whole book took place (Texas) and it’s sad it took until she was in her seventies for her to fully have permission to be herself.

Very important piece of LGBTQ+ history in my opinion, and I’m shocked the book is not spoke about more often. Sure, the main author was a man and the way he described some things were creepy… So there’s that.

Without the Internet Archive, I would have never found that book! Speaking of, I just checked the website and it’s back to its ‘Service Unavailability’ page ;_; Honestly, I wish they’d just keep the site like that until it’s fully up and running.

I know Archive.org is somewhat of a double-edged sword. The plaintiff for the lawsuit isn’t entirely in the wrong. A lot of new books were on Archive.org and it’s frustrating for authors to not be paid a dime for their hard work. Also terrifying with the rise of A.I. I just kind of shoehorned this paragraph in. :P

There are a few books I own thanks to Archive.org. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is one of them. I think I started reading it late winter. I soon got a library card and I began to read the book on Hoopla and the audiobook on Libby. I was also lucky to find countless copies in crisp condition in the Goodwill about 45 minutes away from here. In Bible Belt, U.S.A. It’s wild.

My favorite thing to do on Archive.org was to search for books. I had the best method for finding the books I wanted. I’d use something called Boolean Operators.

Here are two websites for that:

https://keywords.lib.utexas.edu/

https://library.missouri.edu/guides/searchstrategy/

I am absolute garbage when it comes to describing anything. But with Boolean operators, you type one or more subjects and type in keywords or similar words for them.

Here’s one I made for human evolution: past human and hominid species.

((Sahelanthropus tchadensis) OR (Orrorin tugenensis) OR (Ardipithecus kadabba) OR (Ardipithecus ramidus) OR (Australopithecus anamensis) OR (Australopithecus afarensis) OR (Australopithecus africanus) OR (Australopithecus sediba) OR (Australopithecus bahrelghazali) OR (Australopithecus garhi) OR (Kenyanthropus platyops) OR (Paranthropus boisei) OR (Paranthropus robustus) OR (Paranthropus aethiopicus) OR (Homo habilis) OR (Homo naledi) OR (Homo rudolfensis) OR (Homo ergaster) OR (Homo erectus) OR (Homo georgicus) OR (Homo antecessor) OR (Homo heidelbergensis) OR (Homo neanderthalensis) OR (Homo denisova) OR (Homo floresiensis) OR (Homo luzonensis) OR (Homo sapiens)) AND mediatype:(texts)

You had to use Archive.org’s advanced search for this. It’s hard to search for things unless you know what you’re doing, like the deal with AO3. 500,000 books were taken down after the lawsuit, so most books I came across would be unavailable. So I made the jump to OpenLibrary. It’s just another part of Archive.org that makes it easier to find books and past versions of them.

I’ve been using Hoopla and Libby for the time being. I already have been using them, though.

People say they wouldn’t count audiobooks as reading, but… It is reading. C’maaan, people! Are you going to tell people with difficulty reading, maybe they’re blind, that their method of reading isn’t true reading? We’re gatekeeping reading now? At least people are reading.

One book I’ve been reading via audiobook is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I’ve been reading it on Libby. Apps like Libby and Hoopla are certainly better than the Internet Archive when it comes to creators getting their money. I think. Just be mindful of how many books you borrow and make sure you read them because your local library pays for those books to be on there and they come straight from their pockets.

The narrator for this book is delightful and talented. She uses different voices for the characters. It’s amazing! You may recognize the woman’s name - Henrietta Lacks. She’s known for the HeLa cells that were cloned and spread around in laboratories. Those cells are the first human immortal cells to be cloned. She passed away confused and mistreated as a black woman in segregated America. Her family wasn’t given any compensation and the cells were taken without her knowledge. The cells came from her cancer tumor in her cervix. She had to be in the colored room for her treatment and the hospital forms did have in little print that gave them the permission to take cells from the patients for science… That was it. Sorry, again I’m a poor writer.

I still have nearly eight hours left before I finish the book. I’m four hours and a half in. I’d finish it, but I’m bummed out about having broke and lost my AirPod Pros 2. :^ I did find my old ones, though. I do love the book. I mainly read it before I go to bed. I have my AirPods in as I listen to it, and then I take the AirPods out because I can’t fall asleep to audio. :[ I’d also read it while I’m walking or when I’m in a car ride. Looking at the cover, it looks like there are two narrators for the book - Cassandra Campbell and Bahni Turpin.

The only problem I have with Hoopla and Libby is it’s difficult to find the books I want. It doesn’t have a good enough search tool. It doesn’t take excerpts from the book. It’s good enough, though. When I found books on Archive.org I liked, I’d search for it on both Libby and Hoopla.

Well, that’s all! I’m going to take my dog for a walk now. I’m making an effort to walk her every day for at least thirty minutes. Just now I was using a broom to push out my deodorant that had fallen under my bed, and I found my AirPod Pros 2 case!

I’m debating whether I should buy a new pair of AirPod Pros altogether or just buy a right ear replacement. Only the right ear is water damaged. I can still listen normally with the modes off. When I have it in transparent, adaptive, or noise cancellation, though, it’ll make a horrid squeaking sound. When it’s not squeaking, it’s sounding like a hail storm from far away. When it’s not hailing, it sounds metallic, like you have braces on or something. You have to knock the side of your head to get it to shut up, and it’ll get right back to it seconds later. Also, every time you gulp it’s going to make that squeaking sound.

I didn’t spend this much money on AirPods just to listen. I bought it for its noise cancellation!! It was so amazing. I’m told you can just buy a new pair of Bluetooth earphones from the Dollar store. Not ones that come with all the features AirPods have to offer! At least I have my AirPods with me again. I get so annoying talking about them all the time. I’m actually addicted to them. They’re not even really the best earphones ever made. The sound quality when you talk to people is shite. I always have to disconnect them when on call. 

Still, I don’t think I can live without them. I had to use crappy old wired earphones and have brown noise play to block out any noises. My dad’s bedroom is right next to mine and last night he was on a phone call. Perfect opportunity to use my noise cancellations earphones… IF THEY WORKED!!!!!! Bye :]