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Originally Posted by HarryT
Project Gutenberg. You have heard of them, I hope?  |
Sure, just yet another abreviation confuses me
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The great national libraries - The British Library, the Library of Congress, etc -are there primarily to be the custodians of the "literary treasures" of a nation, to preserve them for future generations, and to allow researchers access to them. That type of library certainly has a future, although there's now a clear trend of making the contents of such libraries available to anyone in the world via the Internet.
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Indeed I also don't think national libraries are in danger. At least the concept of nation itself might die first.
However the question remains, how shall this national libraries work in the digital age? How can this work together with copyright? Anybody will be able to just copy the "borrowed" pdf file, I also don't think that any digital protection will truely work.
Will we lose our right to borrow books from libraries?
BTW: I love for my next door national library (austria). And actually the austrian national library is a pure presence library, that is, there is no taking home in this library anyway. I guess this will likely hold true for other national libraries as well. However they have a hugh corner with copy machines, and you are allowed to make paper copies. I guess this actually doesn't hinder copyright much, since buying a book is usual cheaper than photocopying. You are allowed to take your notebook into the library, I just one day want to experiment what the concierges will say, if I take my flat bed scanner in the other
What will happen to our rights to look up books in the digital library of the future?