Kelly, Kevin "Scan This Book!"

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In his article, "Scan This Book", Kevin Kellydiscusses the Universal Library that Google is trying to set up.Google began this project in 2004 when they started digitallyscanning all the works in five major research libraries. ThisUniversal Library could eventually contain a copy of every book andarticle ever written, a copy of every painting, photograph, filmand piece of music produced by all artists, every radio andtelevision broadcast ever created, and every website and blog evercreated. In short, Google plans to create a complete library of allthe works of humankind from the beginning of recorded history.

However, the scanning process is not cheap. Although much of theworld's music is digitalized already, hundreds of thousands ofbooks remain to be digitalized. Stanford University (one of themajor five universities working with Google) has begun scanning itslibrary using a state of the art robot which automatically scansthe page then flips to the next page. However, just like the globaleconomy, getting books scanned in China is much cheaper than in theUnited States. Therefore, many books are boxed up and shipped toChina to undergo scanning there.

Once the Universal Library is complete, readers will be able toaccess any book as if they were at a book store or library. As anaide to research, readers will be able to tag books, words orsentences allowing anyone to search for tags across many books. Onemajor setback to this project is copyright law, especially withlost or forgotten books where the copyright is vague and no oneknows who owns copyright. Despite this setback, Google still planson scanning the books and will allow any author to remove his orher art without question. Google plans to work with publishingcompanies with books still in print - Google will only providesnippets of the work and refer the reader to the publisher wherethey can buy the actual book.

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