Nick Norman
The Internet Archive’s Nick Norman has won a 2024 Anthem Community Voice Award in the category for Best Use of Technology. The Anthem Awards honor mission-driven individuals, companies and organizations worldwide, inspiring global change.
Read Norman’s submission essay, “Scanning the Past to Empower the Future.” Learn more about the award.
Norman began volunteering with Internet Archive’s Open Library in 2019, where the Tennessee native took on a variety of responsibilities, including the communications lead in Open Library’s Fellowship program. Now he is a digital technician, assisting on a variety of digitization projects. He has scanned documents from the University of California Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies Library, the Graduate Theological Union and others.
Making vital documents available to the public is a privilege, he said, and provides important clues about the past that can inform future decisions.
“It’s like breadcrumbs,” Norman said of the knowledge he helps share with users. “Each piece we scan is a breadcrumb, a fragment of a story. People can pick them up, follow the trail, and discover something meaningful — and that’s what I want to do: help people pick them up and see where they lead.”
Norman, whose parents are both librarians, said he was drawn to the work because of his interest in learning and commitment to accessibility of knowledge for all.
“I think about all the materials out there that we get to touch through digitization,” Norman said. “The ability to make significant change or have a profound impact is right at our fingertips.”
Norman considers the documents he has digitized through the course of his work. Some of the materials were given out at meetings or in boardrooms and filed away for safekeeping in places out of reach. He says digitization cracks the knowledge in these materials open again and ushers in new potential.
“It simply takes pulling up a chair at the computer, looking at [the materials] and seeing how I can harness or leverage this to fill in gaps of information that people didn’t even know was out there,” Norman said. “We’re doing something that can make the world a better place.”
Norman hopes the award shines a spotlight on the Internet Archive’s mission to make knowledge accessible to all, adding: “My goal is to use my expertise in community engagement and building partnerships to draw attention to meaningful work, such as what we’re doing here.”