Digitization

About That “Dramatic Growth of Swearing in Books”

14 August, 2017 // 5 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 since 1950. The paper [Read More ...]

On Standard eBooks’ “Light Modernization”

28 June, 2017 // 18 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 and [Read More ...]

Standard eBooks Pick Up Where Project Gutenberg Leaves Off

20 June, 2017 // 9 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 expect from even major [Read More ...]

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

4 April, 2017 // 5 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 attention. A member of the DIY [Read More ...]

Milestone: Project Gutenberg Releases eBook #50,000

5 October, 2015 // 6 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 [Read More ...]

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

14 September, 2015 // 4 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 is activist, digital [Read More ...]

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

5 May, 2015 // 2 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 just got an email from Benjamin Griffin, [Read More ...]

Newly Discovered Treasure Trove of Mark Twain Stories Offer New Insight

5 May, 2015 // 2 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 Dramatic Chronicle. [Read More ...]

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

21 April, 2015 // 12 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 not really [Read More ...]

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

20 March, 2015 // 14 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 offered to scan the used books you [Read More ...]

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

23 January, 2015 // 0 Comments

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 working with the [Read More ...]

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

20 November, 2014 // 6 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 which laid [Read More ...]

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

6 November, 2013 // 5 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 not spread to [Read More ...]

Two Book Scanning Services Lose Copyright Lawsuit in Japan

4 October, 2013 // 4 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 (like 1DollarScan here in the US) violated [Read More ...]

Kindle Plus Legos Plus Mac Equals DIY Scanner (video)

6 September, 2013 // 4 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 a one-of-a-kind book scanner out of a Lego [Read More ...]

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