[Ads-l] Article: Transforming Our Libraries from Analog to Digital: A 2020 Vision by Brewster Kahle

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Earlier this year on the EDUCAUSE Review website, Brewster Kahle,
founder of the Internet Archive, shared his vision of a collaborative
electronic library.

Kahle's idea of creating an electronic replica of a paper book and
loaning it out to one person at a time is intriguing. The Internet
Archive has been doing this for a few years, I believe. But I do not
know if this lending mechanism has been challenged it court.

Date: March 13, 2017
Article: Transforming Our Libraries from Analog to Digital: A 2020 Vision
Author: Brewster Kahle

https://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/3/transforming-our-libraries-from-analog-to-digital-a-2020-vision

[Begin excerpt]
By 2020, we can build a collaborative digital library collection and
circulation system in which thousands of libraries unlock their analog
collections for a new generation of learners, enabling free,
long-term, public access to knowledge.

Today, people get their information online — often filtered through
for-profit platforms. If a book isn’t online, it’s as if it doesn’t
exist. Yet much of modern knowledge still exists only on the printed
page, stored in libraries. Libraries haven’t met this digital demand,
stymied by costs, e-book restrictions, policy risks, and missing
infrastructure. We now have the technology and legal frameworks to
transform our library system by 2020. The Internet Archive, working
with library partners, proposes bringing millions of books online,
through purchase or digitization, starting with the books most widely
held and used in libraries and classrooms. Our vision includes
at-scale circulation of these e-books, enabling libraries owning the
physical works to substitute them with lendable digital copies. By
2020, we can build a collaborative digital library collection and
circulation system in which thousands of libraries unlock their analog
collections for a new generation of learners, enabling free,
long-term, public access to knowledge.
[End excerpt]

Garson

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