Global Cooperation for Global Access: The Million Book Project Denise Troll Covey Principal Librarian for Special Projects Carnegie Mellon CRIS 2004 – Antwerp, Belgium

The Million Book Project Digitize & provide open access to a million books Vision, leadership, & research – Carnegie Mellon $$ Equipment & travel – NSF $$ Labor & research – India & China “Attempt to understand & solve the technical, economic, & social policy issues of providing online access to all creative works of the human race.” Raj Reddy

National Surveys of Students & Faculty 90% want convenient, speedy, easy access –The only thing they want more is quality information 61% want remote access to full-text e-resources Fewer than half think the library meets these needs 48% start with Google or other Internet search engine Gloriana St. Clair

National Surveys of Undergraduates 96% believe surface web information is adequate 72% use an Internet search engine 48% believe library web site information is inferior 46% use online resources all or most of the time Efficiency is more important than relevance Michael Shamos

Carnegie Mellon Graduate Students 82% start with an Internet search engine Getting information from the web is at least twice as easy as getting it from library e-resources Using library e-resources is about as convenient as getting information from professors or classmates 24% often can’t get information when they need it –Out of print books & old journals

Social Significance Help meet the need for convenient, speedy, easy, remote access to quality academic resources Address disparity in library size & accessibility Democratize & facilitate new knowledge Support digital library research Preserve heritage

Collection of Collections What librarians select & partners want –Books for College Libraries (BCL) –Technical reports –Cultural artifacts –Government documents What we can acquire –Bulk, cheap, fast Nov 2001 – NSF Planning meeting Michael Lesk

Seeking Copyright Permission for Open Access Increased success: improved request letter, prompt follow up, nature of collection, & ability to preview University presses, scholarly associations, & estates are more likely than commercial presses to grant permission Transaction cost of $78 per volume is too expensive Response rate per contacts Success rate per responses Success rate per contacts Random books 58%43%25% Posner fine books * 76%70%53%

Shift from Per Title to Per Publisher Indigenous Materials Public Domain In Copyright Initial Current Requires 18% success rate with BCL publishers & 500 books each

Copyright Permission Request Letter Educate –Users want to find information online, but use print –Online access increases use, even use of older works –Open access does not decrease & can increase sales –Currently no revenue from out-of-print books

Request & Incentive Ask for non-exclusive permission to digitize –All out of print, in copyright titles –All titles published prior to a date of their choosing –All titles published # or more years ago –List of titles they provide Assure –Following preservation standards & copyright law –Print & save only one page at a time Give – images, metadata, & OCR  $$$$

Early – Preliminary – Statistics Million Book Copyright Owners Total Owners contacted100% 2. Owners responded24% 3. Success - Responses57% Success - Contacts14% Posner Copyright Owners % 76% 70% 53% Nov 2003 – Mar 2004 Many more follow up negotiations to be done Don’t yet know number of titles

Success Rate Comparison Based on responses Scholarly associations University presses Commercial publishers Authors/Estates Other

Digital Registry Registry of reproductions of books & journals digitized or queued for digitization –Reduce duplication –More access for less cost Registry signals –Intent to preserve & make accessible in entirety –Compliance with standards & best practices –Professionally managed storage & maintenance –Use copy available for public access Release May 31, 2004

Acquisitions & Shipping Acquisitions –Copyrighted books – OCLC locating in partner libraries –Out of copyright – weeding; depositories; duplicates Lessons learned from pilot shipment to India –Reduce cost to $1 per book round trip by changing packing –Reduce time by distributed shipping & knowing customs Lessons learned working with China –Customs & content issues initially prohibited shipping –Scanning centers declared free enterprise zones 2004

Metadata & Digitization Following standards Operators scan & post-process –Above average wages –4000 books per year per scanner (two shifts per day) –400,000 books per year with 100 scanners Librarians capture metadata –Bibliographic: MARC or DC –Administrative: copyright permission & source library

Sustainability Following standards will enable migration Organizations committed to host the Collection –Carnegie Mellon –Internet Archive –Perhaps OCLC Goal is to have ten mirror sites –Estimated cost is one million dollars –Estimated size is 20 terabytes –University of California at Merced –DL of India –China Brewster Kahle

Issues & Next Steps Adding value –Negotiating with Amazon.com for print on demand Updating workflow & processing the backlog Coordinating acquisition & shipping Integrating the collection Improving the interface Copyright permission work

Thank you! Denise Troll Covey –