Finding Indological full-book PDFs on Google Books

[Richard MAHONEY]

Dear Peter,

On Sun, 2007-06-17 at 20:00, Peter Friedlander wrote:
> Dear List members,

> It seems to me that there is an enormous amount of hype that does not
>  match reality in projects like Google Books.

Agreed. And what is most dispiriting is that all this noise tends to
drown out the voice of those who know what they're doing, e.g.:

Codices Electronici Sangallenses (CESG) – Virtuelle Bibliothek
 (http://www.cesg.unifr.ch/de/index.htm)

An Indological or Buddhological MSS archive along these lines -- with
detailed metadata, glorious images, and a fine interface -- would
clearly be splendid. But I don't think that anyone could really expect
Google shareholders to be interested in committing the required
resources. I suppose that this is why media releases such as the
following contain such a disparate mixture of visionary- and
management-speak:


Indiana University: Media Relations
Twelve-university consortium joins Google digitization project
Will create shared digital repository for public domain works
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 6, 2007

(http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/5780.html)

....

"Participation in the Google Books Project is a gift to the IU
Libraries and to all book lovers who will have access through the
Internet. By introducing additional ways to discover books, the project
will increase the use of one of the university's most valuable assets
-- our unique and irreplaceable collections, acquired over centuries,"
said Patricia A. Steele, Ruth Lilly Interim Dean of University
Libraries at IU.

"By participating in this agreement, we join our CIC peers at the
forefront of a grand experiment to build the library of the future.
This agreement will increase our present digitization efforts to a
level we never would be able to afford otherwise. We'll save millions
of dollars and accomplish within years what would have taken decades,"
Steele said.

....



Best regards,

 Richard


-- 
Richard MAHONEY | internet: http://indica-et-buddhica.org/
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