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Digital Future of the Library of Congress

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the yay-for-learning dept.

lesinator writes "On Monday the 28th the US Library of Congress is holding the eighth lecture in its series on Managing Knowledge and Creativity in a Digital Context. Previous speakers include David Weinberger on blogging, Brewster Kahle - founding member of archive.org and the wayback machine, and Lawrence Lessig on intellectual property and the creative commons. After the lecture questions will be taken from the audience and the internet. C-Span will be broadcasting the lecture live at 6:30 PM EST, and also has archives of previous lectures. Audio archives of previous lecture are available at Audible.com in the Selected Free Media section."

4 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. Re:At last! by Shadow+Wrought · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Well I owuld think that they would have to start with an image first. Once they OCR'd it and generated ascii text files, they could save a tremendous amoutn of space by simply deleting the images. However, after that much effort in imaging all those pages, I just can't see them doing that. The best bet is probably two databases, one of ascii text and one of images.

    They might even be able to generate revenue by having the ascii text freely available and searchable, while the images would cost money. That way folks just interested in the text can find it easily, while scholars and others who need to see the source material can have access at a moderate price.

    --
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  2. Hello, Project Gutenberg?!? by Infosquawk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I can never understand why there isn't more acknowledgment of our debt to Project Gutenberg on these issues.

    Michael Hart was digitizing books before digitizing books was cool, as far back as 1971, and the Project's efforts have been hugely successful on very little money. Nevertheless, I rarely see any official or media acknowledgment of the Project's efforts. If anyone should be on that panel for their ability to give advice from practical experience and performance in this field, while on a shoestring budget, it would be Hart!

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  3. Re:Some ideas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's been continually re-written. For example, until 1954 Jesus never actually said "I am the Son of God"; when Pontius Pilate accused him of claiming to be the Jewish Messiah, he cryptically responded "It is you who said it." The fact Jesus didn't claim to be the Son of God but was surrounded by intense believers was one the essential "mysteries" of Christianity that you were supposed to accept as a Christian.

    In 1954, the American "New International" edition just editted the trial dialog and "re-interpreted" "it is you who said it" into "I am the Son of God." I don't think the European and Catholic churches have editted that part yet.

  4. Are they requiring publishers to submit PDF files? by melted · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Are they requiring publishers to submit PDF files for new entries yet? Or files in another open format? Man, I'd hate to see taxpayer's money wasted on doing work that they could avoid doing by simply mandating PDF submissions from publishers.

    I can see that some publishers may just say, "oh, my book isn't gonna be in libraries if I don't submit PDF, so much the better, I'll sell more copies". I hope these fellas realize how badly they're shooting themselves in the foot.