Stefanie asked:
Speaking of all the page scan stuff, Octavo.com is selling PDF's of various old books on CDs. The prices vary, for example, Hooke's Micrographia is "only" $30, while Shakespeare quartos are $75-$100. (I guess the people coming to this store don't know Gutenberg already has these books for free, or they need page numbers or one of the other excuses.) But except for the selling thing, is this kind of what the archived page scan discussion is leading to, or will it be much more complicated?
My vision is a public (free) archive of high-quality scans of renowned public domain books. They can be distributed in various formats and resolutions. Of course, the archive can be fodder for DP activities as well. (I have two renowned books already to donate to this archive!) It's a matter of organizing, and getting the right people to assist with various aspects of the process. I have quite a few thoughts, but haven't yet put them all together in a single proposal. It may require us to experiment with a few matters until we settle into something that makes sense. We definitely need to find cooperating libraries (primarily academic), and to maybe seek donations of higher quality scanning equipment. Cataloging will be important, so hopefully, with the help of librarians such as Alev Akman, we can put together a volunteer group of librarians to assist with QC of the scans and to generate high-quality (MARC-XML?) catalog records. I'm sure TIA will assist in some manner (probably archive the scans and possibly donate scanning equipment.) Thoughts? Jon