Million Book Project Today

Gloriana St. ClairOctober 21, 2003

OCLC

Thesis

• The future of libraries is digital.

• Development and growth of an international library project

• Opportunities and challenges in collaboration, content, and sustainability

Main Points

• Why?• Genesis: Leaders,

Partners • Realities: Collections

and logistics • Dreams: Comments

about the vision

Why?

“Libraries are very unevenly distributed across the world and within countries. Even in the U.S. there are enormous differences. Now technology makes possible a universal world library in which every

person has access to anything written.”

Why?

“In the end, this will be Vannevar Bush’s Memex.”- Michael Lesk, Internet Archive

Bush, “As We May Think” Atlantic Monthly (July 1945)

http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/computer/bushf.htm

Genesis

Leaders

• Co-Directors: Raj Reddy and Gloriana St. Clair

• Michael Shamos – intellectual property; e-commerce

• Jaime Carbonell – machine translation; information mining; auto-summarization

Leaders

• Gabrielle Michalek – pioneered 5 digitization projects

• Erika Linke – collections; intellectual property

• Denise Troll Covey – digital libraries; user studies

Partners

• National Science Foundation

2001 $665,6002002 $1,000,0002003 $1,000,0002004 $1,000,000

for equipment and travel

Partners

• Internet Archive

Partners

• Carnegie Mellon University• Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh• Indiana University• National Agriculture Library• OCLC• Penn State University• University of California,

Berkeley• University of Washington

Partners

China: Beijing University • Chinese Academy of Science • Fudan University • Ministry of Education of China • Nanjing University • State Planning Commission of China • Tsinghua University • Zhejiang University

India: Arulmigu Kalasalingam College of Engineering • Goa University • Indian Institute of Science • Indian Institute of Information Technology–Allahabad • International Institute of Information Technology–Hyderabad • Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation • Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams • Shanmugha Arts, Science, Technology and Research Academy • University of Pune

At an Internet café in Hyderabad

Collections

• BCL - 60,000 “best books”• U.S. government documents • Partners’ unique cultural

treasures• University press negotiations• Copyright clearance projects

for targeted subject areas

New Collection Vision

• Half of the collection might be academic press books in copyright but out-of-print

Copyright Permission Research

Success Rates

• Feasibility Study (1999) - 22%• Academic & scholarly presses

(to date) - 40% • Posner Project (to date) - 60%

Possible U Press Partners

• National Academy Press• MIT Press• Harvard University Press -

list of BCL books• Need electronic version of

the 1989 BCL

Constraints

• The collection must be composed of many sub-collections.

• Librarians will be consulted to ensure solid selection criteria.

• Copyright is a serious barrier to an effective effort.

Research Initiatives

• Machine translation

• Massive distributed database

• Storage formats• Use of digital

libraries• Distribution and

sustainability

• Security• Search engines• Image processing• Optical Character

Recognition (OCR)

• Language processing

• Copyright laws

Distribution and Sustainability

•OCLC?

LatestDevelopments

• China received funding• Over 30,000 books available

@ http://www.dli.gov.in/home.

htm use Internet Explorer!• Million Book Project FAQ @

http://www.library.cmu.edu/ Libraries/MBP_FAQ.html

Thank you & Q&A

Gloriana St. ClairDean of University

LibrariesCarnegie Mellon

Universitygstclair@andrew.cmu.edu

412-268-2447