Online Library Wants It All ...

[Richard Ryan]

The plan is, in principle, mouth-watering.  I am a little unclear, however,
about how this effort differs in practice from the very admirable work of
Project Gutenberg (now almost 30 years old).  Unless the folks at Alexandria
really do intend to ignore copyright....

http://promo.net/pg/

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org]On
> Behalf Of Dave Monroe
> Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2003 4:43 AM
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Online Library Wants It All ...
>
>
> The New York Times
> Saturday, March 1, 2003
> Online Library Wants It All, Every Book
> By ROBERT F. WORTH
>
> The legendary library of Alexandria boasted that it
> had a copy of virtually every known manuscript in the
> ancient world. This bibliophile's fantasy in Egypt's
> largest port city vanished, probably in a fire, more
> than a thousand years ago. But the dream of collecting
> every one of the world's books has been revived in a
> new arena: online.
>
> The directors of the new Alexandria Library, which
> christened a steel and glass structure with 250,000
> books in October, have joined forces with an American
> artist and software engineers in an ambitious effort
> to make virtually all of the world's books available
> at a mouse click. Much as the ancient library nurtured
> Archimedes and Euclid, the new Web venture also hopes
> to connect scholars and students around the world.
>
> ... Its directors hope to link the world's other major
> digital archives and to make the books more accessible
> than ever with new software.
>
> To its supporters, the project, called the Alexandria
> Library Scholars Collective, could ultimately
> revolutionize learning in the developing countries,
> where libraries are often nonexistent and access to
> materials is hard to come by....
>
> Still, the idea faces staggering logistical, legal and
> technical obstacles: copyright infringement, high
> costs and language barriers, to name just a few. Its
> success will depend on its ability to raise money from
> foundations and to forge links with governments and
> major universities that can offer access to their own
> books and materials. At the moment, the project is
> paid for mainly by the library, which is supported by
> the Egyptian government and Unesco....
>
> [...]
>
> The project's creators hope its philanthropic ideals
> and access to the Islamic world will help raise money.
> "When people are concerned about violence and
> fundamentalism, the library is a historical symbol of
> ecumenism and tolerance and rationality," said Ismail
> Serageldin, director of the Alexandria Library.
>
> But the Internet venture may also be shadowed by some
> of the controversies that have plagued the entire
> library undertaking since it was first conceived three
> decades ago. Critics have often questioned its cost
> and asked whether its Enlightenment ideals can survive
> in a country where censorship is common. And a
> contribution from Saddam Hussein before the Persian
> Gulf war has also raised eyebrows.
>
> [...]
>
> ... Users of the Alexandria software will visit the
> Web site and see a sumptuously illustrated library,
> with calling cards and stacks, that will link them to
> online texts much like a standard commercial browser.
> They will store their digital selections from the
> library's collection on shelves in an on-screen
> personal locker.
>
> The software also includes colorful virtual
> auditoriums, classrooms and offices with lamps where
> scholars can exchange information, teach classes or
> hold office hours. The rooms and lecture halls can
> easily be customized for the universities that choose
> to use the library's software for remote learning ...
>
> [...]
>
> The library has scanned only about 100,000 pages of
> its own material, mostly medieval Arabic texts, Mr.
> Serageldin said. But it has embarked on a plan to
> digitize thousands of books over the next several
> years, most of them Arabic texts, with French and
> English translations, he said. Other works are
> scheduled to be scanned elsewhere in Africa, including
> a whole library of crumbling medieval manuscripts in a
> monastery in Timbuktu in Mali, Mr. Serageldin said.
>
> The library will also have access to one million books
> that are now being scanned by Carnegie Mellon
> University, which is creating its own vast digital
> archive and is one of Alexandria's partners. And the
> library has a vast trove of Web material already
> donated by the Internet Archive, a California partner
> with similar universal ambitions. The collective then
> plans to begin bargaining for access to digital
> collections at other libraries and universities around
> the world, offering access to its own materials and
> its network of scholars in exchange.
>
> [...]
>
> Not everyone is thrilled by the thought of their works
> ricocheting around the world free. In the United
> States, publishers have begun to find ways to seal off
> access to their copyrighted works. But unlike some
> for-profit digital libraries that have sprung up in
> the last decade, the cooperative is interested mostly
> in books that are already out of copyright .... In the
> meantime, the cooperative plans to begin urging
> authors to donate their digital rights in the hopes
> that the courts will let them be used.
>
> Another possible obstacle may arise from the sheer
> breadth of the project's goals: digital library,
> lecture hall, international scholars' hub, gateway for
> ordinary readers and new software package....
>
> But Ms. Shearer says the library's large ambitions are
> also an advantage. The current welter of different
> approaches to electronic books and resources is a
> problem for scholars, who will make use of the Web
> only if it can be made easy. The software she
> developed, called CyberBook Plus, was designed to
> allow its use in different formats and languages, with
> a heavy emphasis on visuals rather than posted text.
>
> And putting everything in one place is no longer as
> risky as it was in the predigital era, said Brewster
> Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive. "One
> lesson of the original Library of Alexandria," he
> said, "is don't just have one copy."
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/01/arts/01ALEX.html
>
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