Showing posts with label digital libraries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digital libraries. Show all posts

08 February 2008

DRM For Libraries?

This is a very bad precedent:

the BPL [Boston Public Library] has launched a new service powered by a company called OverDrive. The system gives BPL patrons access to books, music, and movies online -- but only if they use a Microsoft DRM system.

There are lots of problems with the introduction of this system: it bars access to users of GNU/Linux and MacOS and creates a dependence on a single technology vendor for access. These are important issues, certainly. The worst problem, however, is much more fundamental.

By adopting a DRM system for library content, the BPL is giving OverDrive, copyright holders, and Microsoft the ability to decide what, when, and how its patrons can and cannot read, listen, and watch these parts of the BPL collection. They are giving these companies veto power over the BPL's own ability to access this data -- both now and in the future. Cryptographically, BPL is quite literally handing over the keys to their collection. In the process, they are not only providing a disservice to their patrons. They are providing a disservice to themselves.

Libraries should be about opening people's minds, not closing off their collections.

03 January 2008

Afghanistan Digital Library

There's something both forlorn and yet hopeful about the Afghanistan Digital Library. Forlorn, because its collection of scanned images of 170 books emphasises the fragility of the printed word there, hopeful, because once digitised, these books can be copied infinitely.

18 October 2007

A Library of Open Access Digital Libraries

If you're a fan of digital libraries - and, let's face it, who isn't? - you'll find this mega-list useful, especially because:

The sites listed here are mainly open access, which means that the digital formats are viewable and usable by the general public.

That's not to say it's anywhere near complete, not least because it has it's own, self-confessed biases:

This list contains over 250 libraries and archives that focus mainly on localized, regional, and U.S. history, but it also includes larger collections, eText and eBook repositories, and a short list of directories to help you continue your research efforts.

(Via DigitalKoans.)

22 March 2006

Digital Libraries - the Ebook

It seems appropriate that a book about digital libraries has migrated to an online version that is freely available. Digital Libraries - for such is the nicely literalist title - is a little long in the tooth in places as far as the technical information is concerned, but very clearly written (via Open Access News).

It also presents things from a librarian's viewpoint, which is quite different from that of a your usual info-hacker. I found Chapter 6, on Economic and legal issues, particularly interesting, since it touches most directly on areas like open access.

Nonetheless, I was surprised not to see more (anything? - there's no index at the moment) about Project Gutenberg. Now, it may be that I'm unduly influenced by an extremely thought-provoking email conversation I'm currently engaged in with the irrepressible Michael Hart, the founder and leader of the project.

But irrespective of this possible bias, it seems to me that Project Gutenberg - a library of some 17,000 ebooks, with more being added each day - is really the first and ultimate digital library (or at least it will be, once it's digitised the other million or so books that are on its list), and deserves to be recognised as such.