Amazon digitizes rare books; British Columbia newspapers to be digitized

Bapopik at AOL.COM Bapopik at AOL.COM
Tue Jun 26 03:06:31 UTC 2007


Just in case no one saw these.
...
...
_http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9732767-7.html_
(http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9732767-7.html)
June 21, 2007 9:24 AM PDT
Amazon enters book digitization jungle with rare-book project
Posted by _Caroline McCarthy_
(http://news.com.com/8300-10784_3-7.html?authorId=107&tag=author)

Amazon.com's _BookSurge_ (http://www.booksurge.com/)  subsidiary announced
Thursday that it has  partnered with book digitization company _Kirtas
Technologies_ (http://www.kirtas-tech.com/)  on a project to archive and distribute
hard-to-find  books. This new initiative involves collaboration with public and
university  libraries to provide their collections of "rare and inaccessible"
books; the  titles will be digitized through Kirtas and then reproductions
will be sold  through Amazon through the BookSurge print-on-demand service.
In return, the partner libraries--initially consisting of Emory University,
University of Maine, and the public libraries in Toronto, Ont. and Cincinnati,
 Ohio--will receive a cut of the revenue to fund further book preservation
efforts, provided the titles are in the public domain or the libraries own the
rights to them.
"There are thousands of books that have been unavailable altogether or
incredibly difficult to find and access," BookSurge general manager David  Symonds
said in a statement, "so we're thrilled to be making reproductions of  these
unique, collectible books available to millions of Amazon.com  customers."
Amazon _purchased BookSurge_
(http://news.com.com/Amazon+buys+on-demand+book+printer/2110-1038_3-5653595.html) , which specializes in on-demand  printing
of out-of-print books, in 2005.
In its short history, book digitization hasn't gone over particularly well
with everyone (to put it lightly). The most prominent player, Google Book
Search, has come under _seemingly endless fire_
(http://news.com.com/Google+argues+with+U.K.+publishers+over+digital+libraries/2100-1025_3-6080400.html)  from
the publishing industry  over copyright issues.
...
...
_http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=
86799&Itemid=26_
(http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86799&Itemid=26)
Citizen archives going online
(Top  Stories) Wednesday, 13 June 2007, 00:00 PST   by  BERNICE TRICK
Citizen staff
Every Prince George Citizen dating back to 1916 will soon be available online
 through the B.C. History Digitization Program.
When complete, the digitization project will provide an effective and
efficient way for people to research history, revisit past stories and find
information on an array of subjects such as industry, genealogy, and community.
Articles and information, which to now, have been available mainly on microfilm,
will be looked up via a key word search system, said Joan Jarman, marketing
and  development manager at the Prince George Public Library. For example, if
you  type in" floods", all information recorded on floods will become available.

Digitizing will begin shortly and is expected to take up to three years to
complete.
"We'll start with the four oldest, short-duration papers dating back to 1910
-- Fort George Tribune, Fort George Herald, Prince George Post and Prince
George  Star, and continue from 1916 with the
Prince George Citizen to about 1950 during the first phase, expected to be
completed in the fall of this year which will come on line at that time," said
Jarman.




************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list