For the first year of the project, we are targeting to digitize around 100,000 monographs - English language and in public domain.
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 transerred to Interlibrary Loan or Borrow Direct ensuring that you receive the title you need as quickly as possible.
No. The scanning vendor for this project uses a digitization process that does not damage the book. A bound book is placed in a book cradle, which allows the book to be digitized with out damaging the spine. Pages are digitized by overhead digital cameras. So, books remain intact. A mechanical arm then turns the pages as the are digitized, and this process is probably more gentle then turning pages by human hand. We expect all our books to be returned to the shelves in the same condition they were in before scanning.
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.
We expect to start receiving the digitized images in February. 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.
No. Access to the books both from Microsoft and Cornell site will be free of any charges.