One of the newest projects that World Public Library is working on is the Noah’s Archive Project. It is an initiative to preserve and save a master repository of the World’s Knowledge. The projects mission is to create and archive of the World’s most diverse repository of the written knowledge.
All of man’s most profound thoughts and insights have been carefully preserved in written artifacts throughout the ages. Noah’s Archive Project will strive to acquire a digital facsimile of every artifact of knowledge that has ever been written and keep it safe in an on-line perpetual access model for the entire world to access via the World Wide Web.
The inspiration of this project came from the 'Doomsday' Seed Vault, the World's Most Diverse Repository of Food Crop Seeds. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a secure seed-bank located on the Norwegian frozen mountains. It was launched in 2008 to protect the world's food crops and save the seeds from extinction. Imagine the wisdom of our ancestors and all of humankind similarly preserved.
The Noah’s Archive Project will provide a safety net against accidental loss of diversity often seen with traditional physical object preservation. While the popular press has emphasized its possible utility in the event of a major regional or global catastrophe, it is certainly more common to lose rare artifacts due to disintegration of time, mismanagement, accidents, mold, paper rot, funding cuts, then to natural disasters. In recent years, countless national museums and libraries have been destroyed by war and civil strife. Our best estimate is that approximately 5,000,000 one-of-a-kind books, manuscripts, and scrolls that have been loss this century, never to be seen again. With so many threats, politically unstableness or environmentally, to artifacts of knowledge, it is an eventual certainty that unless such an Arc of knowledge is created we could be in danger of losing millions more irreplaceable objects.
The location for the World Public Library Noah’s Archive server vault has been selected to be in a decommissioned WWII military underground bunker, deep in the hills of above Kaneohe Military Base in Hawaii. It was built to protect Kaneohe Marine Core Base from the re-invasion of the Japanese. The walls are 23 inches thick, the ceiling is 19 inches thick and the entire facility sits on a 4 foot thick cement slab 175 feet above sea level, 150 feet into the mountain and 230 feet under the mountain.
The island of Oahu is the ideal location for The Noah’s Archive. It is a stable environment, remote but still readily accessible. In 2003 the island became the hub for all fiber optic cabling across the Pacific Ocean. These cables represent the internet connection between Asia and America.
Did you know?
Great Chicago Fire 1871
- 3 million books destroyed
San Francisco Earthquake 1906
Nazi Book Burning 1933-1945
- 4 Million Books Destroyed
- 5/10/33 day of book burning, 25,000 books burned in a single day
Iraq War 2003
- 10 Million Books Destroyed
- 1 Million Documents
- Iraq National Library & Archive destroyed
- University of Baghdad Library destroyed
- Al-Awqaf Library destroyed
- Library of Bayt al-Hikma destroyed
Hurricane Katrina 2005
Egyptian Revolution 2011
We estimate approximately 5,000,000 one-of-a-kind books, manuscripts, and scrolls have been loss this century, never to be seen again.
The Noah's Archive eBook Vault is a public service, there is no charge for anyone to safely store their publications in our digital vaults. To add your publications just click on the "Get Published" tab on the top right of this page. All publications in our Author's Community are automatically backed up in the Noah's Archive Storage Facility.
Interviews about the Noah's Archive Project
Svalbard Global Seed Vault
Battery Bunker 405, Site of Noah's Archive Global Storage Facility
Battery Bunker 405 Schematics
Trans-Pacific Optical Cables