Microlibraries Project: 20,000+ books available on demand
,----[ Quote ]
| The Center for Open and Sustainable Learning (COSL) has organized
| the Microlibraries Project, making over 20,000 Project Gutenberg
| books available at minimal cost through a simple print-on-demand
| system.
|
| [...]
|
| The entire library can be accessed here. The software used to
| convert these books is open source, and will be available soon.
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http://www.computers.net/2007/02/microlibraries_.html
Google's and Microsoft's scanning projects have the issue of ownership (never
mind the fact that these books they do not own), so public initiatives like
this are commendable.
Related:
Publish And Perish
,----[ Quote ]
| Alexander Rose, the executive director of the futurist Long Now
| Foundation, worries about the impermanence of digital information.
| "If you save that computer for 100 years, will the electrical plugs
| look the same?" he asks. "The Mac or the PC--will they be around?
| If they are, what about the software? " So far there's no business
| case for digital preservation--in fact, for software makers like
| Microsoft, planned obsolescence is the plan.
|
| "The reality is that it's in companies' interest that software should
| become obsolete and that you should have to buy every upgrade,"
| Rose says. We could be on the cusp of a turning point, though, in the
| way businesses and their customers think about digital preservation.
| "Things will start to change when people start losing all of their personal
| photos," Rose said.
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http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/books-information-preservation-tech-media_cx_ee_books06_1201acid.html?partner=yahootix
http://tinyurl.com/yyjqoh
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