[Foundation-l] Open Library, Wikisource, and cleaning and translating OCR of Classics

[Lars Aronsson]

Yann Forget wrote:

> This discussion is very interesting. I would like to make a summary, so
> that we can go further.
> 
> 1. A database of all books ever published is one of the thing 
>    still missing.

No, no, no, this is *not* missing. This is exactly the scope of 
OpenLibrary. Just as Wikipedia is not yet a complete encyclopedia, 
or OpenStreetMap is not yet a complete map of the world, some 
books are still missing from OpenLibrary's database, but it is a 
project aiming to compile a database of every book ever published.

> Personally I don't find OL very practical. May be I am too much 
> used too Mediawiki. ;oD

And therefore, you would not try to improve OpenLibrary, but 
rather start an entirely new project based on MediaWiki?  I'm 
afraid that this ("not invented here") is a common sentiment, and 
a major reason that we will get nowhere.


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se