Carnegie Mellon's Digital Library Exceeds 1.5 Million Books

cashman73 writes "Most Slashdot readers are probably familiar with Google's book scanning project, a collaboration with several major universities to digitize works of literature, art, and science. But Google may have been beat to the punch this time -- about a decade ago, Carnegie Mellon University embarked on a project to scan books into digital format, to be made available online. Today, according to new reports, they now have a collection of 1.5 million books, the equivalent of a typical university library, available online."

Comments

Re:Yay!

[Joe Tie.]

Traditional libraries are long dead in a pretty significant percentage of the US. I live in a fairly large city, and it's pretty much useless for anything but the level of book one would expect high school students to need. No real database access, no journals, very little in the way of primary sources for anything. It's all novels, magazines, newspapers, "subject X for dummies", and out of date encyclopedias. The wireless access there has been useful at times, but that's about it. You don't get a good library without a public willing to put in the requisite money, and fewer and fewer people are.

Re:Well...

[agrippa_cash]

You are mistaken, and for this you should be glad. It often takes several years for masterpieces to be recognized as such, so it shouldn't surprise you that nothing you like has been acclaimed. I'm not a high culture joe myself, so please don't be offended, but today's high culture may be incomprehensible to you because you aren't sophisticated enough to appreciate it. If you grow up watching Fantasia, it is easier to enjoy Stravinski. As for originality, the tale is in the telling. People of years past lived and died much as we do, a bit more fresh air and hard work maybe but basically the same. Basically. They were us first, what are you going to do? Culturally we are far, far ahead of the 1907 crowd. Your image of 1899 is almost certainly based on the western upper class (listening to Wagner) rather than the teeming western poor (listening to minstrel shows) or the uncountable colonized listening to whips, maxim guns, pickaxes and sermons.

Re:Any reckless venture capitalists in here tonigh

[phantomfive]

As an average, educated male, I hate being in a discussion with someone who name-drops a book I never heard of before, as a proof that my point is invalid because I am not well read enough. It's the ultimate bitch-slap of the intellectual boxing If something like that stops you, then you totally need to work on your technique. What you have there is a clear and you fell for it even though it was ONLY IMPLIED.

If someone comes up and says, "oh, this book clearly proves my point" then you can easily come back with, "Interesting. What does it say?" And you're off again, arguing the truth against real facts. Don't let them escape by saying, "oh, it's complicated." Respond, "it's ok, I have time. Please explain."

The point is, make your goal to find out the truth, and you will always win. Don't defend ideas anymore once you know them to be false. Switch over as soon as you know you are wrong, and you will always be right. Not to mention switching drives your opponent batty.