[WEB4LIB] RE: Library News from Google ... *and* UM!

[Sloan, Bernie]

An article in the Detroit Free Press quotes John Wilkin (UM project
director) as saying:

"Going as fast as we can with the traditional means of doing this, it
would take us about 1,600 years to do all 7 million volumes...Google
will do it in six years. If we were to do this job ourselves, it would
probably cost us $600 million...That's just the human cost of preparing
the material for scanning, packing it up and sending it out to vendors
and then quality-control checking of the results. This is easily a
billion-dollar effort."

The article also hints that Google is using "new technology developed by
Google that greatly speeds the digitizing process."

Free Press article:

http://www.freep.com/money/tech/mwend14e_20041214.htm 

Bernie Sloan

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of K.G. Schneider
Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2004 1:51 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: Library News from Google ... *and* UM!

> A quick calculation using the figures above suggests an average scan
> rate of 3200 volumes per day (assuming 365 days/year for 6 years) at
> the University of Michigan site alone.
> 
> I am very curious about the process that enables this level of
> throughput.
> 
> Tito Sierra
> Digital Library Initiatives
> North Carolina State University

I think it's called money...

Karen G. Schneider
kgs at bluehighways.com