A number of large-scale projects are currently underway to digitize entire libraries of books. This effort will provide great benefits to humanity for generations to come. How many books have been written and published in all of human history that no longer exist? Undoubtedly, at least some of these books were great literary works which no one will ever be able to read again. Saving old books through book digitization will ensure that these writings will be around to be read, learned from, and enjoyed far into the future.

 

Project Gutenberg, the first of its kind, has been working digitize books for nearly forty years now. They were the pioneers in this effort, scanning and publishing thousands of books online. Because the writings are so old that copyrights have expired, Project Gutenberg books can be accessed online for free. They boast over 18,000 digital texts in their collection.

 

In recent years, a number of other organizations have caught on to the benefit of saving old books by digitizing them and are following suit. Examples of the big ones include Google Book Search, Open Content Alliance, ebrary, NetLibrary, and Live Book Search from Microsoft. A small number of university and public libraries, such as Cornell, are working with these companies to build the digitized collections. Some other libraries choose to set up their own databases of digitized books. All of this results in thousands, perhaps millions, of books being accessible from a computer

 

Countless published writings have already been lost throughout human history. There is no way to know how many wonderful literary works were among them. Through modern technology, we can prevent this from continuing to happen in the foreseeable future.

 

There are many rare and out-of-print books held in today’s libraries and museums. Unfortunately, something as simple as a fire could destroy the last remaining copy of an old book and prevent it from ever being read again. Digitizing these old books will allow their contents to easily be stored in many locations at once. As long as the internet is still around, these books will be preserved.

 

Digitized books will also be much more accessible to the general public. Old, rare books cannot be checked out of libraries and are not often sent to different locations. When a book is digitized, one simply has to sit down at their computer, log on to a website, and download the file.

 

Obviously, another benefit of digitizing old books is that the physical threat of aging materials will no longer be an issue. Even with advanced preservation techniques, there is no way to make a two-hundred-year-old paper copy of a book last forever. By digitizing them, they will be preserved for centuries to come.

 

Newer technologies for digitization are less destructive to the original copies of books than what was used a few years ago. However, one issue that still needs to be worked out is quality control. Some digital copies of old books are produced so quickly that non one is paying attention to the end product. Flaws such as blurred images and missing pages have become a problem that needs attention.

 

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