A German Library for the 21st Century

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,676591,00.html

"So it goes, day after day, at the Munich Digitization Center of the Bavarian State Library."

This is the statement the author uses to explain a technological work of genius. What the Munich Digitization Center is aiming to do is to convert thousands of books, movies, images and audio recordings from their original form to exact digital copies, to be accessed on the internet. A machine does this for books by scanning a page, inserting a thin wedge between the next pages, then using a quick puff of air to flip the page, it repeats the process - at over 1200 pages per hour. The German company says it wants to compete with Google's service, Google Books, and accumulate sources from over 30,000 libraries across the world. The group hopes to have their service online for trial testing by 2011, where a person can find any number of artifacts pertaining to their search; for example, a search of Beethoven would produce books on Beethoven, samples of his music, images of his original handwritten sheet music, and even movies based on his life. So far, Google has digitized over 10 million books, with Munich Digitization Center at only 45,000. The MDC hope their service will extend to fragile ancient tomes and other works that Google does not offer, and plans to link the site with a public wiki and places to buy copies and tickets to events pertaining to the search as well.

I think it's very exciting to see a resource this valuable come to light. One website where you could get all of that information would make writing research papers so much easier, and no having to go to the library or buy the book or any of that crap? I would absolutely love it. That said, I had no idea Google Books even existed, so I might be looking into that for my future papers, especially if their claim at having over 10 million books is true. Also, I like the fact that they brought up the point that making digital copies of books would save a little bit of face in fires or accidents where books are ruined or lost. Countless copies of irreplaceable books have been lost throughout history, and a digital database as circular as the internet would truly help in maintaining the longevity of ancient books. In any case, I truly hope this idea comes to be, because I could definitely use the help.