Digitization Archives | The Digital Reader

About That “Dramatic Growth of Swearing in Books”

14 August, 201715 August, 2017Digitization, Google Books, Language5 Comments

A recently published academic paper has shown that the weakening of censorship inside publishers has lead to a dramatic increase in the use of swear words in American books...

On Standard eBooks’ “Light Modernization”

28 June, 201729 September, 2017Digitization, Language18 Comments

When Standard eBooks first gained widespread attention last week, a number of people complained about that project's stated intention to alter the ebooks it created by changing the punctuation...

Standard eBooks Pick Up Where Project Gutenberg Leaves Off

20 June, 201727 June, 2017Digitization, Freebies9 Comments

eBook formatting is important. One of the reasons Feedbooks tops my list of free ebook sites is that the ebooks there are formatted to a higher standard than you can...

This Home-Made Book Scanner Uses an iPhone, Scans 24 Pages Per Minute

4 April, 201712 June, 2017Digitization5 Comments

Book scanners can cost thousands of dollars, but with a little ingenuity you can build one at home relatively cheaply. Lone Wolf Librarian brought one such rig to our...

Milestone: Project Gutenberg Releases eBook #50,000

5 October, 20156 October, 2015Digitization, Milestone6 Comments

Project Gutenberg announced on Saturday that the 40-year-old program had digitized its fifty thousandth work. Chosen in honor of Project Gutenberg founder Michael Hart, the milestone title was John Gutenberg,...

Brewster Kahle as the Next Librarian of Congress: Panacea or Palliative?

14 September, 20155 May, 2017Digitization, Libraries4 Comments

With James Billington set to retire in January from his position as the Librarian of Congress, talk is turning to his possible replacements. One of the names being bandied about...

That “Cache” of Mark Twain Writings Wasn’t a Cache, Nor Was it Recently Uncovered

5 May, 201513 January, 2016DeBunking, Digitization2 Comments

There's a story going around this week that a new cache of Mark Twain's writings had been uncovered by researchers, but it turns out that is not the case. I...

Newly Discovered Treasure Trove of Mark Twain Stories Offer New Insight

5 May, 20155 May, 2015Digitization2 Comments

Mark Twain is best-known as an American novelist and humorist, but aside from his fans few recall that before Twain was a novelist he was a newspaperman for the San Francisco...

Taking Books to Bits: Book Scanning with 1DollarScan.com

21 April, 201515 May, 2016Digitization12 Comments

There are services that offer to scan books and create electronic versions. Most are pretty expensive, but 1DollarScan.com holds out the prospect of scanning your book for $1.00. It’s...

Better World Books Will Sell You a Used Book, or a Scanned Copy for $2 More

20 March, 201515 May, 2016Bookstore, Digitization14 Comments

This blogger may be an inveterate ebook devotee but I still buy used paper books when they are cheaper. So when a reader tipped me to an online bookseller which...

How to Run a Web Browser – In a Windows 3.11 – In a DosBox – Inside Another Web Browser

23 January, 20156 September, 2015Blast from the Past, DigitizationLeave a comment

If you thought it was madness to run Windows 95 inside a DOS emulator on an Android Wear smartwatch, then the following could blow your mind. Jason Scott, a digital archivist...

Machine-Learning Algorithm Can Rank the World’s Most Notable Authors, But Can it Identify the Most Worthwhile?

20 November, 201411 May, 2017Digitization, Discoverability6 Comments

If it's possible to judge an author's notability based on their Wikipedia entry then Dr Allen Riddell of Dartmouth College has you covered. Earlier this month Riddell published a paper...

Internet Archive Catches Fire, Reminds Us Why Digital Archives are so Important

6 November, 20136 September, 2015Digitization5 Comments

A fire broke out at 3:30 this morning in the Internet Archive's scanning center, destroying equipment and temporarily knocking the IA servers offline. According to Mashable the fire did...

Two Book Scanning Services Lose Copyright Lawsuit in Japan

4 October, 20137 May, 2017Digitization, Lawsuit4 Comments

I have some bad news today for ebook lovers in Japan. The Tokyo District Court has handed down a ruling that says that a couple paid book scanning services...

Kindle Plus Legos Plus Mac Equals DIY Scanner (video)

6 September, 201310 August, 2016Digitization4 Comments

Do you like Rube Goldberg machines? Do you like to bypass DRM? Then you'll love this DIY project. One hacker with too much time on his hands has built...

Category: Digitization