With that in mind, you can understand the excitement when Archive.org announced they would begin archiving books, as well. Termed the “Physical Archive,” the goal of Archive.org is, to put it simply, “preserve one copy of every published work.” Part of the preservation process includes digitizing the content within the books, with the following goals going forward:

Because we expect day-to-day access to these materials to occur through digital means, the our physical archive is designed for long-term preservation of materials with only occasional, collection-scale retrieval. Because of this, we can create optimized environments for physical preservation and organizational structures that facilitate appropriate access. A seed bank might be conceptually closest to what we have in mind: storing important objects in safe ways to be used for redundancy, authority, and in case of catastrophe.

The blog entry discussing the project indicates not all written works will make into their physical archive, and in fact, they indicate the number of unique titles in literature is estimated to be around 100 million. Archive.org’s goal is preserve over 10 million of these individual works. To facilitate this process, Archive.org needed a physical containment unit capable of keeping these printed works protected, and, well, dry. So they turned to the shipping industry for ideas:

Based on this technical literature and specifications from depositories around the world, Tom McCarty, the engineer who designed the Internet Archive’s Scribe book-scanning system, began to design, build, and test a modular storage system in Oakland California. This system uses the infrastructure developed around the most used storage design of the 20th century, the shipping container. Rows of stacked shipping containers are used like 40′ deep shelving units. In this configuration, a single shipping container can hold around 40,000 books, about the same as a standard branch library, and a small building can hold millions of books.

An example of the storage facility in question:

Books are cataloged, and have acid free paper inserts with information about the book and its location,

Boxes store approximately 40 books with labeling on the outside,

Pallets hold 24 boxes each,

Modified 40′ shipping containers are used as secure and individually controllable environments of 50 or 60 degrees Fahrenheit and 30% relative humidity,

Buildings contain shipping containers and environmental systems,

Non-profit organizations own and protect the property and its contents.

While such a task should be commended, is Archive.org’s goal any different than Google’s Library Project? Aside from the fact that Archive.org has shown no indication of monetary gain with their physical archive project — perhaps the biggest difference between the two; something Google has had to address in legal venues — making their approach a little more altruistic than Google’s.

Being the non-profit that they are, Archive.org is also soliciting donations to assist in the project’s undertaking. Considering their goal, it’s actually a cause worthy of donation.

  Features of the ad unit include synched animation, floating rich media, and streaming video. Yahoo says the objective of the contest is to determine which campaign most creatively and effectively uses the Tandem capabilities.

It’s a contest in which advertising agencies can submit their non-profit digital campaigns for a chance to appear in 74 million impressions on Yahoo. In addition, the winner can be among the first to try Yahoo’s new custom ad unit integration on Yahoo! Mail, and reach 32 million daily users.

"Agencies are doing an unbelievable job of building smart campaigns for good causes and helping non-profits break into digital in meaningful ways," said Beth Lawrence, vice president of agency development at Yahoo!. "This contest with the Ad Council provides a fun and creative way for agencies to showcase their creative genius, get some recognition for their favorite non-profits and drum up interest and visibility for an important cause. We are thrilled to be a part of this contest and part of the digital revolution for every kind of campaign."

Any advertiser that currently has a digital campaign with the Ad Council is eligible to apply, but advertisers are also encouraged to create new campaigns. The winning entry will be announced November 4th and run on November 18th. The deadline for submission is October 23rd. Submissions can be made at advertising.yahoo.com/createforacause.

Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB, Nancy Hill, President and CEO of AAAA, Allison Arden, Publisher of Advertising Age and Creativity Magazine, Peggy Conlin, President/CEO of the Ad Council and others make up the committee that will judge the campaigns.

Yahoo wins from the contest by getting to show off its new ad unit to a lot of people, but the best part is that no matter who officially wins the contest, the ad will (presumably) be aimed at a good cause and create massive exposure for it.

The initiative is working with charity organization FORGE, which works with displaced communities in Africa. The challenge itself is to meet their budget gap of $100,000 through a pro-bono SEM campaign designed to increase awareness and donations.

"Over the last few years, SEM community has often come together to address various social causes or raise money for charities – particularly during this time of year," Boris Mordkovich, who brought the project to my attention tells me. "This year, non-profit organizations and charities have been hit particularly hard and many of them are facing financial difficulties threatening their ability to continue operations. So, a couple of weeks ago, a small group of search engine marketing professionals have decided to make a difference and come together to help a charity in need."

"The marketers – 4 people in total – have been putting in a tremendous amount of work and effort into this already and will continue to do so into the new year," says Mordkovich. "I just figured that it’s a nice testament to how our community can come together and work to accomplish good, selfless goals. And I hope that if this is successful this year, we’ll be able to repeat it again next year with a different charity and more people onboard."

At the time of this writing, they are up to over $3,000. The hundred-day challenge lasts until the end of February 2009.

In fact, the Google Foundation seems to be getting money faster than it can spend it.  “In 2006, the foundation had $4.07 million in revenue on its investments, and paid out $2.096 million,” reports Docu-Drama’s Chris O’Brien.  “The foundation started the year with $84.67 million in assets and finished the year with $86.86 million.”

Mind you, this financial weirdness doesn’t wipe out the Google Foundation’s good works; I’m sure Development Marketplace, PlanetRead, and the Greater New Orleans Foundation are all very happy to have received donations.  Still, this non-profit will have to pick up the pace if it wants to stay true to that label.

At the very least, the Google Foundation might want to look into alternative investment strategies.  That $4.07 million gain corresponds to an interest rate of just 4.7 percent (assuming I got my math rate), and pretty much any bank should be able to offer a CD paying more than that.

Oh, well.  As Jacquelline Fuller, Google.org’s communications manager, dropped in after a Valleywag post to explain, “Google.org is the philanthropic arm of Google Inc.  Some, but not all, of its grants and activities are funded by the Google Foundation. In 2006, Google.org gave $4.196M to support efforts across global health, global development and climate change,” and “[i]n addition, the Google Advertising Grants program, our primary vehicle for supporting domestic organizations, donated more than $71M worth of free ads in 2006.”