Bowerbird wrote:
as long as we can easily move scan-sets to digitized text, i don't see much purpose in continuing to debate these two as if they were competitors. they're not. they're complimentary.
This is the core point in this discussion, which I agree with. I intended to answer earlier about Brewster Kahle's views on scanning versus "polished" digital text content derived from the scans. Better late then never, I suppose. I've had the honor of chatting with Brewster quite a few times, and although he loves high-quality scans of books (as I do), he is also cognizant of the need for at least noteworthy texts to eventually be "hand polished". His view is simple. Let's scan *everything* and get it online. Once the scans are there, then there's something to convert to digital text. Since DP already scans texts before conversion, what Brewster is advocating is simply part of that process, and not competitive with it. Plus, having scans of the original is a good idea, even if highly- proofed digital texts are created for some of the works. Jon