Technology Blog

Universities across the United States are considering digitizing classic works for their libraries; the University of Hawai’i at Manoa’s Hamilton Library is no exception.
UHM [University of Hawaii at Manoa] has already made efforts to digitize unique documents such as old Hawaiian language newspapers and images from the Charlot collection….Library officials at colleges like the University of Texas at Austin have made preliminary efforts over the last year to employ the Open Content Alliance, an organization attempting a mass-book digitization. Both MSN and Yahoo! have announced that they are willing to participate in providing books online. Despite the perception that this is a new field, book digitization has been occurring for more than 10 years. UTOPIA, an online program offering a broad range of content to the general public, has provided sources online, including the Gutenberg Bible….Columbia University and the University of California are among higher education institutions interested in providing free, digital access to major public works….According to Rutter, books from 1850-1923 are those that should be digitized soonest. Books from this period of time, referred to as the “brittle book period,” are exempt from the 50-year copyright period; therefore, there would be no copyright infringement. Cornell University has made efforts to digitize agriculture literature specifically from this time. “The books printed at that timelot of pulp and acid in it, so they’re crumbling a fair amount faster,” Rutter said. “The books from that time will not be available, so digitization makes sense.”…UHM’s dissertations are currently digitized using Proquest, a licensed database that has moved from using microfilm as a resource to using online versions of the documents. Currently UHM is looking at an institutional repository that would hold all of the data produced on campus in a safe and accessible place.”