Rarely Learning

I am surprised by the number of failed initiatives by governments around the world in presenting digital information. Europeana, the latest to crash within minutes of launch, was perhaps the most ambitious: a comprehensive catalogue from over a 1,000 museums, libraries, and archives. Ironically, these sites fail due to the influx of traffic, except there's no denial-of-service attack. One of the first sites to fail (and never be resurrected) was evidenceincamera, which was slated to host an archive aerial reconnaissance photos from World War II. The promise of photos of D-Day landings and the Bismarck's sinking created a fever prior to launch. Although I applaud their design and conception, these projects need to be subcontracted to companies like YouTube that provide quick and reliable access to large volumes of information.