Open Library, a free Internet book database, will open its pages to the public in March, providing libraries and people worldwide with easy access to information on millions of books.
The Open Library, which currently contains the texts of 20 million books, aims to create a comprehensive Web page about every book ever published. The database will provide publishing information on each book as well as links to the nearest library, bookstore and online stores where people can access it. The database will also give users the opportunity to write and read reviews, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Aaron Swartz, 21, co-authored the RSS 1.0 specification and created the database's Web site. Swartz also helped to build Reddit.com, a popular Web site that allows users to rank news and other electronic media. Swartz became wealthy when he sold Reddit to CondeNast publications, according to The Chronicle.
"I got really interested in the project when I noticed that wandering through the stacks of my local library, I was finding all sorts of interesting books I'd never heard of before," Swartz said. "And what I saw was that I'd never heard of them because there was nothing about them on the Web, so I wanted to make a site that would give these great books a first-class place on the Internet."
WorldCat, a database owned by the Online Computer Library Center, a nonprofit organization, provides services similar to those which Open Library will provide. According to the WorldCat Web site, its database includes records from more than 10,000 libraries and holds approximately 98 million bibliographic records, with more than 60,000 libraries paying to be a part of the service. WorldCat is only accessible through libraries.
However, Open Library will contain books from any source and will be free to everyone, according to the database's demo site.
Swartz said he doesn't think Open Library will seriously challenge WorldCat for the time being.
"WorldCat has a fantastic business selling to libraries, and in the short term I don't think that will change," he said. "What we're doing is exposing all of that information to a wider public."
Through Open Library, users will have the ability to create and update their own book Web pages and book Web pages that others create.
Nichole Tennyson, a freshman in the School of International Service, said that allowing anyone to contribute through Open Library was a good idea and would allow it to grow.
"I think that Open Library could become a good resource because professors often prefer that you use books rather than other sources," she said.
Alex Kogan, a junior in SIS, said this could present a credibility problem for the site.
"Usually when things aren't academically backed, their credibility is dubious, and I might be hesitant to use it," she said.
Diana Vogelsong, AU's associate librarian for public services, said there was a possible credibility problem with Open Library.
"Like Wikipedia, it may be useful for casual research and quick look-up, but you wouldn't want to depend on it for your thesis or a published work," she said. "It may also be difficult to discern unique editions of works without expert cataloging."
Vogelsong said AU might eventually have some interest in contributing to the project, but for now, it makes more sense for larger libraries to undertake the project.
"The libraries that are now contributing to the system have already undertaken huge scanning projects, some funded by Google," she said. "There are copyright issues and costs associated with involvement in these projects, and at this point in time, it makes more sense for these big libraries to be the initial contributors"