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Currently no copyrighted or non-English language books are under consideration for digitization.
Why spend time and money to digitize old, "low-use" books?
Our experience digitizing library material suggests that digitizing and making "low-use" material available online will boost their use and will increase the long-term returns on our investment in the purchase, storage, and maintenance of Cornell's extensive print collections.
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The general public will able to tell that items are charged out, but it will not be apparent from the public catalog that these items are charged out for digitzation. Public service staff can assist users by accessing the MARC record in the online catalog. The 903 field in the MARC record will reflect that the book has been sent to be digitized. It will have "Kirtas" and the barcode in the field. For example: 903 __ |a Kirtas |d 20060901 |p 31924029885658
The 7th floor stacks are looking pretty empty. What is happening to the books once they are digitized? (who can answer this?)
How long will books be unavailable?
Books will be checked out for the project for up to 3 months. We hope as the workflow processes become smoother that the actual time the books will be out of the library will be shorter. If you request (hold/recall) a title that is checked out for this project, your request will automatically be transferred to Interlibrary Loan or Borrow Direct ensuring that you receive the title you need as quickly as possible.
There is a 2006 book I need to place on course reserve. Is that likely to be charge out to digitization?
No. During the first year of the project we are only digitizing books in the public domain. We are currently focusing on books published prior to 1923.
ACCESS
How will I be able to access the digitized books?
There will be two mechanisms to access the books, a Microsoft delivery platform and a Cornell Library delivery mechanism (yet to be determined). By the end of 2007, users should be able to access material at the Microsoft Live Book site (now in beta version):
http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=&scope=books&FORM=BBIR
When will digitized images be available using Cornell's platform?
We expect to start receiving the digitized images in August 2007. The LSDI Access group is in the process of assessing different delivery options. One of the scenarios reviewed involves linking the PDF versions of the books to the Voyager records as they start arriving, however we don't anticipate implementation of such a system until 2008.
Will there be a cost for using the digitized images?
No. Access to the books both from Microsoft and Cornell site will be free of any charges.
Will the books be available to people outside the University?
All books will be made freely available to the world.
FURTHER INFORMATION