Andrew Albanese, Google To Digitize 15 Million Books, Library Journal, January 15, 2005. Excerpt: 'Dennis Dillon, associate university librarian at the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin), called the program "brilliant." "A great leap forward," commented Michael Keller, head librarian at Stanford University --one of Google's partners in the project—noting that online book content has lagged far behind journal content....James Neal, Columbia University librarian, said, "It takes this bubbling pot of digitization water quickly to a boiling point."...Oxford University Press academic publisher Niko Pfund said he was cautiously optimistic: "Bottom line is that we're still creating and providing content --that's what we do-- vs. how that content is delivered, which is what we're talking about here. I can see that Google Print has great potential for generating additional print sales."...Google isn't the only game in town. Last month, the San Francisco–based not-for-profit Internet Archive (archive.org) announced partnerships with a number of international libraries as part of an ongoing effort launched in 2003 to scan books into "open access archives." Included are the Library of Congress, University of Toronto, and Carnegie Mellon University, as well as the Bibliotheca Alexandria in Egypt, Zhejiang University in China, and Netherlands-based European Archive. Supported by a range of public and private grants, the Internet Archive has pioneered digital archiving efforts for all formats, including audio and moving images. Currently, over one million public domain or "appropriately licensed" books have been committed to the archive, and over 27,000 are already available.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/15/2005 01:16:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
