Andrew Sly wrote:
I'd suggest that getting content and finding Public domain books is not something we need to worry about. Having enough interested volunteers to help produce them will probably be more of a challenge.
What interests me is to split up the project into three areas/groups, each of which can have its own volunteer base, its own group leaders, and a level of autonomy with the other groups. The three are: 1) Scanning 2) Cataloging and Copyright Clearance 3) Conversion to structured digital text The first, scanning, can be done independently. It would seek out old texts to scan which, if public domain, can be placed online. Ask for donations (with a tax deduction to the donor) of old books which are otherwise falling apart, chop them, then run them through a sheet feed scanner. The chopped books would then be put into ziploc bags with a dessicant (or whatever other method is recommended) and archived away in case there's interest in rescanning. I think it even possible to ask Brewster Kahle at the Internet Archive for a donation of sheet feed scanners in return for donating copies of the scans to IA. These scanners, even rugged professional level models, are not overly expensive (not like the orbital or robotic scanners, for example.) (In other messages, I referred to the scanning project as Distributed Scanners.) The second, cataloging/copyright clearance, will take the scans which have been done, and put together MARC (or equivalent) records for the works (a lot of data can be taken from other libraries.) In addition, the group can do the research on the copyright of the works, which of course the cataloging information is important in the process. And finally, this group can look over the scans to determine if any pages are missing or badly scanned (a sort of QC function). It may be possible to find trained librarian volunteers to help out in this group. Since there exists *excellent* commercial software for cataloging, again the Internet Archive may be willing to buy licenses for that software for the group to use in return for help in cataloging IA's scanning project in Toronto. Alev Akman is the expert in the area of cataloging who should be further consulted for this project (she is a head librarian at CSU Fresno, and has an MLIS degree.) She highly recommends using commercial software for generating the cataloging records in MARC or MARC-XML -- she also recommends the project develop an authority database for the various fields, such as author names. And the third area I don't need to discuss since that is the area of focus at this time. Interestingly, I would expect the scanning group to greatly outpace the group producing structured digital texts, at least early on. This doesn't matter, really. I think from a political standpoint (particularly with regards to influencing the Canadian government with regards to proper copyright policy), it is wise for the scanning group to go hog wild and get as many scanned books online as possible -- get a half dozen sheet feed scanners and keep them running 24-7! This will catch the attention of a lot of people, including the Internet Archive, and lead to good things, such as closer association with the Canadian government and various archives, great PR, and other benefits (possibly even major long-term funding.) Jon Noring