Join us for these conversations between The Political Librarian’s Editor in Chief Allison Jennings-Roche and some of the authors featured in the recently released new issue of The Political Librarian.
The Political Threats of Vanishing Culture and the Need to Protect Our Future Memory
Monday, September 7th at noon ET
Drawing on perspectives from the Internet Archive and the Our Future Memory movement, speakers Michael Menna and Lila Bailey will discuss the political crisis of “vanishing culture” and the threat of a digital dark age as physical media gives way to digital licensing markets. Join us for a conversation exploring the urgent challenges facing libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural heritage organizations, our society’s "memory institutions" in the digital age.
This session will unpack the critical need for four essential digital rights: collection, preservation, access, and collaboration, to ensure our shared history and knowledge are protected for future generations. This conversation will explore the Statement on Digital Rights for Protecting Memory Institutions Online (2024), which has inspired a growing global coalition, and discover practical steps memory institutions can take to safeguard their roles.
Michael Menna is an outgoing Law and Policy Specialist at the Internet Archive and incoming Visiting Faculty Fellow at the University of Michigan Law School. He received both his PhD and JD from Stanford, after which he clerked for Judge M. Margaret McKeown on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. His academic writing is either published or forthcoming in The Journal of Intellectual Property Law, English Literary History, Early Theatre, PMLA, and Shakespeare Studies.
Lila Bailey is Senior Policy Counsel at the Internet Archive. A seasoned attorney and copyright expert, she leads the library’s policy work.
When
September 07, 2026 at 12:00pm - 1pm