Internet Archive, Libraries Collaborate on Open-Access Text Archives

-- Library Journal, 12/27/2004

Google can certainly steal the media thunder, but it isn't the only game in town. Earlier this month, the San Francisco-based Internet Archive announced partnerships with a number of international libraries, including the Library of Congress, the University of Toronto, and Carnegie Mellon University, as well as the Bibliotheca Alexandria in Egypt, Zhejiang University in China, and the Netherlands-based European Archive--all part of an ongoing effort launched in 2003 to scan books. The goal of the Internet Archive text project is to put digitized books into "open-access archives," ensuring easy--and continuous--access for the public.

Supported by a range of public and private grants, the Internet Archive has pioneered digital archiving efforts for all formats, including audio and moving images. Visitors can submit and/or access anything in digital form, from public domain books to concert audio and videos, movies, and old web sites, through the IA's Wayback Machine, which archives web sites. IA officials say they hope to have over as 70,000 books up by spring. Currently, over one million public domain or "appropriately licensed" books have been committed to the archive, and over 27,000 are already available.