A Handful of Digitization Projects Profiled in NY Times; Plus a ResourceShelf Guide to a Few Other Digitization Projects
History, Digitized (and Abridged)
It's wonderful to see a bunch of smaller but none-the-less very important getting attention in the NY Times.
However, we read little in the article about the large amount of newspaper digitization coming from sources like ProQuest CSA, NewspaperArchive.com, Thomson Gale, and PaperofRecord. These companies are digitizing papers (full text and full image) from around the world. For example, from the NY Times back to 1881 to the Wall St. Journal back to Vol. 1, No. 1. In fact, the NY Times sells pay-per-view access while many libraries offer the database and its contents at no charge for personal use. Thomson Gale offers the Full Text and Page Images of the Times of London back to 1785. Btw, most of these projects include digitized articles as well as digitized ads.
Complementing three previously launched series, the two new collections—Early American Newspapers, Series 4, 1756-1922 and Early American Newspapers, Series 5, 1777-1922—will expand the coverage of America’s Historical Newspapers by adding more than 200 new titles, including newspapers of unique historical importance, regional weeklies and big-city dailies.
For more on digitization projects, here are some other articles:
To keep this post shorter, all of the URL's posted below are available here:
+ Brock Reed from Wired Campus points to an article in the Tri-Valley Herald about a bunch of people (students) who page after page, book after book are scanning pages for The Internet Archive / Open Content Alliance.
+ In 2005, we posted a profile of a person who scans books at the University of Toronto (via Wall Street Journal, free).
U of T is part of the OCA.
+ Video Clips Show the “Book Scanning Robot” Being Used at the University of Toronto
Remember, book digitization in one form or another has been going strong for 35 years via Project Gutenberg founded my Michael Hart.
1) World eBook Library
More than 400,000 full text books all in PDF. $8.95/year. Includes a large number of PG titles.
2) Impressive!!! http://shop.ebrary.com
Free remote access to more than 20,000 books. All full text and full image. Pay only to print or copy a page. About 25 cents. No limit on how much you can view.
The FreePint Family is a family of resources to help information workers be more effective, raise the value of information in their organisations and contribute to success.
'FreePint... provides most of my professional development because it won't come through work and [other resources] just don't cut it.'
FUMSI Forum: Do you have a research question? Post it to the FUMSI Forum, where professionals share Q&A and useful tips on how to Find, Use, Manage and Share Information. It's free.
FreePint Shop:
VIP LiveWire:
