Sent to you by pfctdayelise via Google Reader: PALINET launches digitization initiative via Open Access News by Gavin Baker on 30/10/08 PALINET, a regional library network in the U.S., launched a digitization project on October 21, 2008. See the press release or this story in Library Journal: ... [T]he PALINET regional library network recently announced its Mass Digitization Collaborative, supported in part by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Through the project, PALINET member libraries will be able to scan and digitize selected texts as the result of an ongoing partnership with the Internet Archive and its regional network of digitization centers.

Participants will receive high-quality versions of the digital editions, which will also be made freely available through Archive.org. The goal, according to Catherine C. Wilt, PALINET’s executive director, is to make available more than “20 million pages of text from PALINET members,” equivalent to approximately 60,000 books.

Only works free of copyright restrictions and with existing metadata are eligible for the project. Moreover, member institutions are “strongly encouraged” to select unique texts and items of local and regional significance. ...

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