Can we create a national digital library?

[RandomAnthony]

Stole this from Cerwiden's facebook feed...

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi...

What do you think? Pros and cons?

[R.C.]

It can be done but it would take a ridiculous amount of man hours to scan in all those books. Creating robots to do it for us would be the best route; faster and they won't get tired.

Some people would be concerned about piracy if everyone has access to those digital medias, and perhaps there would be various tiered fees fr different levels of access, but but would be great if anyone if the country/world had instant access to every book ever written.

[[deleted user]]

Pro: Free reads all around!

Con: Sifting through the IT proposals/bids for such an undertaking.

[ms.petra]

pro. maybe one of you techies can explain to me why there is a wait list for a downloadable ebook from my library?

[janine]

it's probably not something technical, but because of a copywrite law.

[Jim]

I would imagine they only have so many licenses that they have paid for Petra, so they can only have so many digital feeds out at a time.

[Jackie "the Librarian"]

Jim "Badgerilla" wrote: "I would imagine they only have so many licenses that they have paid for Petra, so they can only have so many digital feeds out at a time."

Exactly, Jim. I have to buy multiple copies of popular ebooks, too. Which seems crazy, but it's all about licensing fees.

[ms.petra]

thanks.