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Internet Archive proposal for mass digitization
I had known that the Internet Archive had submitted a response to the GPO's RFP for mass digitization. A friend just sent me the link to the proposal submitted to GPO (embedded below and here's the link to the proposal and supporting documents). As you can probably guess, we've been pulling for the Archive to get the bid, not least of which because the Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit library and we've stated on more than one occasion that privatization of public domain government information is a very bad idea. But also, we've been heartened by the quality of the Archive's scans to date, their openness and willingness to be collaborative in their processes and data access and sharing. Those qualities certainly come through in their proposal for mass digitization -- not to mention the fact that they've actually made their proposal public! While the award has not been officially announced, we really hope that the Archive wins the award. Perhaps GPO will name them as an official depository library and work with them not only on the "legacy" collection (there needs to be a better description of the deep and rich collections of depository libraries than the somewhat pejorative "legacy" :-| ) but on digital deposit of government documents going forward. --that is all.
Book Ripper (bkrpr) could facilitate small digitization projects
A post just now about recommendations for book scanners on code4lib reminded me of a comment from a Council member last week at Spring '09 DLC. The Council member said that his relatively small academic library might not have the technical or monetary means to gear up a large scale digitization project, but that he was more than willing to pitch in with small projects or one-off digitizations if there was, for example, a list of items of importance from which he could pick and choose. I commented then and will repeat now that digitization doesn't necessarily mean a library has to purchase a high end digitization unit (aka the Scribe) from the Internet Archive for $15k -- although I *love* the work that the Open Content Alliance (OCA) is doing! A small project could easily be done with off-the-shelf hardware and open source software (The Scribe's software is in fact freely available under a GPL license on SourceForge!). One such project that I'd recommend you look into is the Book Ripper project (bkrpr for short!). (Disclosure: my friend Karl Fogel is involved in bkrpr). They've even got instructions for building the camera mount. All the hardware is cheap and/or easy to build and the software is free and open source (they're experimenting now with OCRopus for character recognition processing). Check it out!
National Academies Reports (1863 to 1997) Now Available in Open Access
The National Academies (The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council) have a long history of advising the government. Now, they have announced "the completion of the first phase of a partnership with Google to digitize the library's collection of reports from 1863 to 1997, making them available – free, searchable, and in full text – through Google Book Search. The Academies plan to have their entire collection of nearly 11,000 reports digitized by 2011."
- More Than 9,000 National Academies Reports Now Available in Open Access, press release, April 10, 2009.
FDA 1906-1963 Documents Digitized
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced the availability of the FDA Notices of Judgment Collection, 1906-1963.
The FDA Notices of Judgment Collection is a digital archive of the published notices judgment for products seized under authority of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act. The NJs are resources in themselves but also lead users to the over 2,000 linear foot collection of evidence files used to prosecute each case. The evidence files are a rich documentary resource filled with legal correspondence, lab reports and data, photographs, and product labeling and containers. This digital library, created using the SPER system, allows for browsing the collection as well as searching the collection's metadata and full-text. Currently only the Drugs and Devices portion of the collection is available in the digital library. As we complete work on other portions those will be released on an ongoing basis. Users are welcome to visit NLM to use the hard copies at any time.The collection uses DSpace and provides technical information about the project: System For Preservation of Electronic Resources (SPER). Continue reading
Interview with Internet Archive Founder
FLYP online magazine published an interview with Internet Archive's founder, Brewster Kahle, entitled "Know It All". There is a text version of the article, but the interactive multi-media verison is much more fun! Plus, it contains a nice video showing Brewster explaining the mission of Internet Archive.
Brewster Kahle wants to give you digital access to every book, film, video, song, TV show and periodical ever published. If he succeeds, the world will be a different place.Continue reading
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