Ammar W. Mango, A million books online for free, Middle East North Africa Financial Network News, September 26, 2006. Excerpt:
All library research rituals may become a thing of the past real soon....The days of walking along thousands of bookshelves trying to find a book may become like a fairy tale for grandfathers to tell their grandchildren. Soon, libraries will be replaced by virtual ones; easily and freely accessible sources, from the convenience of your home, work, or school computer lab.
The Million Book Project, a name fit for such a legacy project, aims at digitising a million books in multiple languages, and providing them for free on the internet as part of what is called the "Universal Library."
The project, initiated by Carnegie Mellon University, is part of a bigger scheme to create a universal library that will capture all books in publication worldwide. This library is a virtual one that will exist on the internet for people to access freely around the clock....
At present, researchers in less developed countries, still dependent on regular libraries are suffering because of the limited number of resources. The universal library will end the problem and offer researchers access to a decent number of references, regardless of their geographic location. The online project will also provide education systems from countries around the world with the chance to make use of books that may not be available in their part of the world....
Since the library is going to feature books without violating copyright laws, it is expected to include relatively older books, in addition to newer ones that grant permission to the library for book inclusion.
The project which started on August 2001 is well already underway, with over 600,000 books already scanned. Scanning has been taking place mainly in India and China, with some books scanned in nearby Egypt. While most references are in the English language, some are in other languages, including Arabic....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/26/2006 12:35:00 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.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
