Access to web
sites is often suspended - or blocked altogether - because of
a real (or imagined) violation by the webmaster of the host's
Terms of Service (TOS). Millions of other web sites - the
results of collective, multi-annual, transcontinental efforts
- contain unique stores of information in the form of
databases, articles, discussion threads, and links to other
web sites. Consider "Central Europe Review". Its archives
comprise more than 2500 articles and essays about every
conceivable aspect of Central and Eastern Europe and the
Balkan. It is one of countless such collections.
Similar and much larger treasures have perished since the dawn
of the digital age in the 1920's. Very few early radio and TV
programs have survived, for instance. The current "digital
dark age" can be compared only to the one which followed the
torching of the Library of Alexandria. The more accessible and
abundant the information available to us - the more devalued
and common it becomes and the less institutional and cultural
memory we seem to possess. In the battle between paper and
screen, the former has won formidably.
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