Thread by @textfiles

So, Reddit discovered the @internetarchive tweet about bookscanning. The thread is here:

reddit.com/r/interestinga…

I have observations.

The #1 with a bullet response by many people is "Surely this can be 100% automated, I can't believe a person is in there."

I addressed it in this tweet thread:

https://twitter.com/textfiles/status/1358541168288673796

So, it's been [0] days since the Internet has stumbled on a 20-year project with "thoughts"

The thread is already veering towards a thousand responses, many of them the aforementioned "Been here 5 minutes. Here's how it should go."

But it's also got real bookscanner employees and ex-employees in there, so there's some first-hand experience in there, at least.

The summary is: It's a boring job, with occasional flashes of interesting stuff you're scanning. Some people watch netflix or listen to podcasts. Other rooms are stricter, different vibe. Some people hated the job, some were fine. Nobody seems to see it as a career.

I worked years of temp jobs so I saw a lot of variant workspaces, and I remember one or two so bad I couldn't imagine anyone working there and others I wished I could stay forever. Such is working a job.

Another book joins the Internet Archive every minute, so there's a lot of books coming in. Whatever else this job is, it's honestly doing good in the world. I highly suggest checking Internet Archive (archive.org) out if you haven't already.