Jef's web files - e-books

In Google We Trust?

Wed, 15 Dec 2004 13:27:55 -0500

From Jon Udell's blog:

Dave Winer today points to an Scott Rosenberg's excellent take on Google's new library venture. Scott concludes:

The public has a big interest in making sure that no one business has a chokehold on the flow of human knowledge. As long as Google's amazing project puts more knowledge in more hands and heads, who could object? But in this area, taking the long view is not just smart -- it's ethically essential. So as details of Google's project emerge, it will be important not just to rely on Google's assurances but to keep an eye out for public guarantees of access, freedom of expression and limits to censorship. Scott Rosenberg

Google Is Adding Major Libraries to Its Database

Tue, 14 Dec 2004 08:25:32 -0500

Google, the operator of the world's most popular Internet search service, plans to announce an agreement today with some of the nation's leading research libraries and Oxford University to begin converting their holdings into digital files that would be freely searchable over the Web.

It may be only a step on a long road toward the long-predicted global virtual library. But the collaboration of Google and research institutions that also include Harvard, the University of Michigan, Stanford and the New York Public Library is a major stride in an ambitious Internet effort by various parties. The goal is to expand the Web beyond its current valuable, if eclectic, body of material and create a digital card catalog and searchable library for the world's books, scholarly papers and special collections.

National Academies Press

Tue, 20 Jan 2004 20:41:26 -0500

The National Academies Press (NAP) was created by the National Academies to publish the reports issued by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council, all operating under a charter granted by the Congress of the United States. NAP publishes over 200 books a year on a wide range of topics in science, engineering, and health, capturing the most authoritative views on important issues in science and health policy. The institutions represented by NAP are unique in that they attract the nation's leading experts

New Device Can Digitize Up to 1,200 Book Pages per Hour

Mon, 12 Jan 2004 14:49:46 -0500

Those who attend the American Library Association's midwinter conference this month will see a curious machine -- a lecternlike bookstand with robot arms that pass vacuum wands over the pages. It is a new device that automatically digitizes entire books - up to 1,200 pages an hour -- with little help from a human operator.