Frequently asked questions

Short answers to what people ask most. If yours is not here, the contact page reaches a person.

About The Ark

What is The Ark of Forgotten Knowledge?: A library of practical knowledge, compiled over decades from old books gathered across the world. Many of the texts are more than a hundred years old and some are several hundred. The standard library is free. Group video Q&A, certificate courses and printed copies sit alongside it for members who want them.
Is this a doomsday or prepper site?: No. It does not have to be a doomsday thing, and mostly it is not. Technology lets people down in entirely ordinary ways: an outage, a flat battery, a service that changes or disappears, a country where your phone is no use to you. The knowledge here is worth having on a normal Tuesday, not only on a bad one.
Why does old knowledge matter when everything is online?: Because being able to look something up is not the same as knowing it, and the two feel identical right up until the moment the lookup fails. The techniques in these books built civilisations and the first industrial revolution. They work without a signal, a subscription or a search engine.
How do I know I can trust what an AI assistant tells me instead?: An answer is only as good as what fed it, and what feeds it is whatever was published, optimised and promoted hardest. Somebody paid for the study behind it, and you are not told who. These texts carry their own provenance: you can see who wrote them, when, and what they were writing about.

Is it really free?: The entire standard library will always be free to members who join early as we grow. That is not bait for something else, and members who never pay anything are as welcome as those who do.
What is free and what costs money?: Free: the standard library of books. Paid: group video Q&A with professionals and experts, online courses up to certificate level, and hard copies of any of the books.
When does The Ark open?: The fourth quarter of 2026. Register your interest and we will tell you when the doors open.
What does membership cost?: Prices are not set yet. When they are, they will be very reasonable. The point of The Ark is to put this knowledge into as many hands as possible, and a price that gets in the way of that would defeat the whole exercise. The standard library stays free either way.

What subjects does the library cover?: Around forty at present, and growing. They run from food, water and animal husbandry through building, energy, metalwork and medicine to navigation, preservation and self-defence. The full list is on the home page.
How old are the books?: Many date back more than a century. Some are several hundred years old. They were chosen because they document real knowledge and real experience rather than theory.
Are these scanned originals or rewritten versions?: Neither, and something better than both. A raw scan of a two hundred year old page is close to unusable, so the text is extracted and reset in a readable format: a faithful transcription, where the words are the original author’s and only the legibility is ours. Larger works are sometimes broken into smaller volumes so they can actually be used. And some titles are compilations, drawn from various sources and arranged by subject the way we think the material fits together best.
Can I download the books or only read them online?: Both. The library reads online, and ePUB versions you can keep are available to download. Printed copies can be bought as well, and a printed book needs no battery, which is rather the point.

What are the group video calls?: Online question and answer sessions with professionals and experts across different fields, open to paid members.
What level are the training courses?: Online and remote education up to certificate level. They are expected by the third quarter of 2027.
Can I get physical copies of the books?: Yes. Hard copy versions of any of the books are available for a fee, subject to membership level. A printed book needs no battery, which is rather the point.

Where in the world is this available?: Everywhere. Members read from Asia, Europe, Australia, North America and South America, and the library is written for all of them: where a figure depends on your climate or your local supply, it gives you the range and the variable that moves it rather than one country’s answer.
How do I get in touch?: Through the contact page. It reaches a person, not a queue.