Can Twitter Fit Inside the Library of Congress?

In 2010, the Library of Congress and Twitter announced a historic and incongruous partnership: Together, they would archive and preserve every tweet ever posted, creating a massive store of short-form thoughts. It was odd: a 210-year-old institution partnering with a four-year-old startup, cataloging the internet’s ephemeral #brunchtweets. It was also fascinating: equal parts futuristic and anachronistic. I imagined library scribes copying tweets by hand onto vellum or cranking feeds through a printing press. The news actually frightened some folks: Does this mean my future grandkids will read my live-tweets of Parks and Recreation?

Yet, however dubious the task seemed back then, no one doubted the Library of Congress would get the work done. If Twitter could handle a few million tweets a day, surely the largest library in the world could, too.

But as it turns out,