The Open Library Makes Its Online Debut

"The Open Library Makes Its Online Debut"
"Imagine a library that collected all the world's information
about all the world's books and made it available for everyone
to view and update," write members of the Internet Archive's
Open Content Alliance. "We're building that library." And now
the alliance has put a demo version of that library online. The
Open Library is meant to serve as a vast digital card catalog,
and Web surfers will be able to edit entries, much like in
Wikipedia. The repository will also collect books in the public
domain, a mission that will bring the library into competition
with Google's much-publicized book-scanning service. Some
critics of the Google project have high hopes for the Open
Library, which seems more eager to embrace the ideals of Web
2.0. "If all goes well," writes Ben Vershbow of if:book, "it's
conceivable that this could become the main destination on the
Web for people looking for information in and about books."
That's still a big if: The library will rely heavily on
contributions from unpaid volunteers. But the Open Library has
at least one thing going for it, according to Mr. Vershbow: "On
presentation of public-domain texts, they already have Google
beat." The library offers books in a number of different file
formats, including a "flip book" tool that attempts to simulate
the experience of rifling through a hardbound tome. "This sort
of re-enactment of paper functionality is perhaps too literal,"
writes Mr. Vershbow, but he admits that it makes for a pretty
decent reading experience. The Open Library plans to unveil a
fuller site in October, and project officials will have to do
plenty of work to meet that deadline. They plan to create an
entry for every book ever published, not just digitized books in
the public domain. --Brock Read
From The Wired Campus
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2235

Photographic Libraries

Photographic Libraries
http://www.photographiclibraries.com/
Search a wide variety of photographic libraries by both keywords and type
of library (archive collections, photojournalist resources, fashion
photographer resources, science, free photos and clip art, etc.). Note
that results take you to the appropriate photo libraries, not to specific
images.

Good Old Summer Time

The Great American past time:


July is National Hotdog Month
Hotdogs as America
Fact Sheet on Hotdogs

Erle Stanley Gardner

Today, in 1889, Erle Stanley Gardner was born. A practicing attorney in California, he turned to writing and created the famous Perry Mason based upon his experiences. Perry Mason lived in the multiple realms of print, radio, and television. For some history of the well-known show, visit The Museum of Broadcast Communications.

Book Sale

It's the book lover's favorite time of year! It's the Barnes and Noble Summer Clearance Sale online!
You can get great books for as low as $2.00. Also, they usually have great shipping discounts. It's sometimes free when you spend over $25.oo.
Check it out!

World Clock

World Clock

Interesting to notice which number moves quickest.

Rare Book Room

Rare Book Room
This "educational site [is] intended to allow the visitor to examine and read some of the great books of the world." Includes digitized facsimiles of "some of the great books in science, including books by Galileo, Newton, Copernicus, Kepler, Einstein, [and] Darwin"; most of the Shakespeare Quartos; musical scores by Beethoven and Mozart; the 1455 Gutenberg Bible held by the Library of Congress; and many more. Searchable, or browsable by topic, author, or library. Very Interesting, enjoy.
URL: http://www.rarebookroom.org/

From the Librarians' Internet Index
Websites you can trust!

100 Best First Lines of Novels

100 Best First Lines of Novels: As chosen by the editors of American Book Review

1.	Call me Ishmael.	Herman Melville	Moby-Dick	1851
2.	It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.	Jane Austen	Pride and Prejudice	1813
3.	A screaming comes across the sky.	Thomas Pynchon	Gravity's Rainbow	1973
4.	Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.	Gabriel García Márquez (trans. Gregory Rabassa)	One Hundred Years of Solitude	1967
5.	Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.	Vladimir Nabokov	Lolita	1955
6.	Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.	Leo Tolstoy (trans. Constance Garnett)	Anna Karenina	1877

Continued.....