Brewster Kahle really seems to like archiving things. He founded the Internet Archive, in fact, which hosts an archive of the entire Internet, as well as a great deal of public-domain material, the eTree archive of shows from bands that allow live taping of their shows (including the local band Big Smith, which is made up of members of a family with whom mine had both intermarriage and a blood feud a hundred years ago). Now, the AP reports, Kahle has decided he wants to archive a copy of every single book ever published. Even Kahle himself realizes he...

On Monday July 4th, the World Public Library's annual World eBook Fair launches, which will combine works from Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, and other public collections to create a massive 6.5 million title catalog. The collection will include not just ebooks but other media like music and movies, as well as sheet music and dance choreography. EBookNewser points out that there don't seem to be any events scheduled during the fair to increase visibility, which seems too bad. At any rate it runs until August 4th....

The Internet Archive reports on its blog that it is concerned about the original copies of books being digitized for libraries and other institutions being discarded or moved to "off site repositories" when they are returned.  Their solution is to take these original books and archive them for future use: A reason to preserve the physical book that has been digitized is that it is the authentic and original version that can be used as a reference in the future. If there is ever a controversy about  the digital version, the original can be examined. A seed bank...

In  January of last year, I originally argued the librarian’s dilemma was that of figuring out what course of action libraries should take in the eBook arena.  A year later, it seems there is still no clear answer!  Given the recent Google Books decision (info via the Disruptive Library Technology Jester blog) and the public discussions from both OverDrive and Harper Collins, I don’t think any clear answer is coming soon! So what does a library do?  Remember, the choices they make will ultimtely affect you, the eBook buyer, reader and enthusiast! Ultimately, I think libraries should focus for now on the free...

Most people are probably aware by now of the turmoil going on over in Egypt, with the government cutting off all Internet access as part of its effort to stay in control. While much of this is outside the scope of TeleRead’s coverage, this is not: National Geographics’s News Watch blog, reposts a letter of gratitude from Alexandria’s Librarian Ismail Serageldin, director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, to a number of the mobilized youth of Egypt for banding together to help protect the library from vandals and thugs during this troubled time. “The library is safe thanks to Egypt's youth,...

Publishers Weekly has an interesting piece on an American Library Association panel on e-books and libraries January 8th. The panel featured a number of librarians and e-book experts, including Sue Polanka of the “No Shelf Required” blog and Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive. The panel focused on the opportunities and challenges e-books offered libraries. Kahle in particular was outspoken about the need to prevent an oligarchy of a few powerful corporations from taking control of digital media for the future. [Kahle] expressed his longstanding concern over Google’s efforts to scan collections “and sell it...

From the Internet Archive Blog: On December 17, 2010 Brewster Kahle received the Zoia Horn Intellectual Freedom Award for successfully challenging a National Security Letter (NSL) issued by the FBI that requested personal information about a user of  Internet Archive’s site, archive.org. You can see the award presentation and hear Brewster recount the entire ordeal. A number of articles were written about it at the time including: FBI Backs Off From Secret Order for Data After Lawsuit Brewster Kahle offers a cookbook for fighting security letters From the articles: “What we wanted to do out of this was to leave a very public cookbook for...

 Yesterday, the Internet Archive and more specifically, the Open Library, posted a few photos of a new reading desk (aka Reading Desk 2.0) that includes the IA BookReader. Included in the set of photos is a pictire of IA Founder, Brewster Kahle, using the IA BookReader at Reading Desk 2.0. For those of you who want the tech specs of what you're seeing in the photos: Hardware: HP L2105tm multitouch monitor, connected to laptops running Windows 7 with the HP touchscreen drivers. Software: The Internet Archive BookReader (with mang’s new multitouch support code) running in Firefox 4 beta 6 for multitouch support. The BookReader...

Copyright Clearance Center’s Chris Kenneally interviews of Peter Brantley, director of the InternetArchive’s BookServer Project. During the conversation, Peter explains that authors should be concerned about the future of publishing, specifically about “navigat[ing] and arbitrat[ing] what their rights are to recreate their product in a digital environment.” The discussion also addresses the new surge of self publishing, the ‘flattening’ of the industry and how legislation will respond to this new, digital future. You can find the podcast here and the transcript here....

From the HASTAC website (blockquotes omitted): The Internet Archive is planning a meeting in San Francisco on Thu. Oct 21 - Fri. Oct 22 tentatively titled "Books in Browsers". The meeting will cover achievements in moving books to the web, including developments in OPDS Catalogs, vending and lending, and the design and effective deployment of ebooks and reading experiences for web environments. The portability of books and bookshelves, reader application interoperability, storage and transmission security (including encryption and caching), the legal and user consequences of book licensing vs purchase, and ramifications for user privacy and data protection are viable angles. Currently, I...

David Rothman pointed me to an article in the Wall Street Journal about Openlibrary.org, a new cooperative initiative between the Internet Archive and a number of public and other libraries. They are creating a digital library containing “more than a million scanned public domain books and a catalog of thousands of contemporary e-book titles” that will be available at member libraries. And a couple of libraries are contributing scans of a few hundred older works that are still under copyright—which is what got Google in trouble. For books that are still under copyright, the library will treat a...

While many libraries, both public and academic, have implemented digital resources for their patrons in bits and pieces, I would argue that now is the time for libraries to work on putting together a comprehensive digital branch approach, offering millions of books, millions of newspapers and magazines, and open acess 24/7.   Given the facts of mass digitization of titles, free-to-use API's,  and social sharing of resources, the digital library branch is a reality that can be implemented.  Here's how.... Every library needs a place to start, so our digital branch will be created on a branch of the current library web...