The Library of Utopia

[Swede]

Despite the challenges it faces, the Digital Public Library of America has an enthusiastic corps of volunteers and some generous contributors. It seems likely that by this time next year, it will have reached its first milestone and begun operating a metadata exchange of some sort. But what happens after that? Will the library be able to extend the scope of its collection beyond the early years of the last century? Will it be able to offer services that spark the interest of the public? If the DPLA is nothing more than plumbing, the project will have failed to live up to its grand name and its even grander promise. The dream of ­H. G. Wells—and, for that matter, Robert Darnton—will have been deferred once again.

http://www.technologyreview.com/featured-story/427628/the-library-of-utopia/

[2on2u]

1. There is an audio library available.... it has executed over 100 million

downloads with "No Rights Reserved"..... this is just an fyi, sorry if it doesn't add to the subject line..... just something that I find extraordinary.

www.Librivox.org

ON EDIT TO ADD:

Recent additions:

LibriVox's New Releases

Lady of Quality, A by Burnett, Frances Hodgson
Domestic Manners of the Americans by Trollope, Frances Milton
幼年童話 (Yonen Dowa) Part 1 by Niimi, Nankichi
Sammlung kurzer deutscher Prosa 038 by Various
Lifted Masks by Glaspell, Susan
Ivanhoe NL by Scott, Walter, Sir
Maarten Chuzzlewit by Dickens, Charles
New Arabian Nights by Stevenson, Robert Louis
Origins of Christianity, The by Whittaker, Thomas
My Bible History: Old Testament by Morrow, Louis Laravoire
Lin McLean by Wister, Owen
Her Benny by Hocking, Silas
Untroubled Mind, The by Hall, Herbert J.
Life of Reason volume 2, The by Santayana, George
Fables de La Fontaine, livre 10 (version 2) by La Fontaine, Jean de
Wolf Hunters, The by Curwood, James Oliver
Octopus, The by Norris, Frank
Free Press, The by Belloc, Hilaire
Ballade of Suicide, A by Chesterton, G. K.
Lovers, The by Dickinson, Emily
Inca Lands by Bingham, Hiram
Chip, of the Flying U by Bower, B. M.
To the Last Man by Grey, Zane
Great White Queen, The by Le Queux, William
30 American Poems by Various
Mr. Spaceship by Dick, Philip K

[hunter]

2. Books, art, and science left behind the "copyright wall" is easily lost.

Corporations often toss stuff they can't sell into the dumpsters, and stuff gets lost or misplaced when they go out of business or are absorbed by other commercial entities.

In a century or two (maybe sooner) we may be thanking "pirates" who hoarded, preserved, and duplicated copyrighted materials outside the copyright owners' control.

Creative Commons licensing, open source and free software, and digitizing and collection of public domain materials such as can be found at the Gutenberg Project or archive.org are one response to this concern.