Internet Archive wins education award

The Internet Archive (IA) has won the Microsoft Education Award from the from the San Jose Tech Museum's Tech Award program (awarded by the museum, funded by Microsoft).  From the acceptance speech by Rick Prelinger, the IA Board President: 

...Our grateful thanks to the Tech Awards for recognizing us. I'd also especially like to thank Microsoft, the sponsor of our category. Microsoft has generously supported our bookscanning efforts and is helping us to work with our partners to build an open library....

Universal access to knowledge is a lofty goal and a fiendishly difficult project. But it's now within our grasp.

Can we do it? Certainly. The technology to digitize the world's legacy of cultural materials exists. The infrastructure to make it accessible is propagating throughout the world.

Will we do it? Well, that's up to all of us....[W]e need to think carefully about the barriers that separate knowledge from those who desperately need it. In many parts of the world, access to knowledge can mean the difference between health and sickness, between education and ignorance, and between stability and a precarious existence.

Openness and interoperability made the Net work....Openness and interoperability will make it possible for the world to enjoy universal access to information. We need to make sure that openness is at the core of all of our efforts. We hope that cultural material will be shared and distributed as freely as the law allows.

This is the great opportunity of our era. It's a bigger task than any single organization or company can or should achieve by themselves. Through partnerships with public and private entities, with for-profits and non-profits, we hope to do our part. Please join us.