I'm on a self-imposed sabbatical from blogging on Google Library Print because (1) Jim and Solveig are doing a great job there, (2) I don't care for the invective that is starting to surface in the debate, and (3) the more I reflect on it the more conflicted I find myself.

In an effort to be positive I've decided to highlight an already existing example of an online print index that I've found to be a wonderful resource: The Perseus Digital Library.

Jim will be pleased to see that not all efforts in academia are ill-conceived. This archive, a creation of Tufts University with the assistance of the NEH, NSF, and various corporations, foundations and universities, hosts complete, searchable texts of hundreds of classic works, from Homer to Shakespeare. It also contains definitive scholarly works analyzing these classics, and these are also searchable. Here's how its site describes it:

Perseus is an evolving digital library, engineering interactions through time, space, and language. Our primary goal is to bring a wide range of source materials to as large an audience as possible. We anticipate that greater accessibility to the sources for the study of the humanities will strengthen the quality of questions, lead to new avenues of research, and connect more people through the connection of ideas.

There was a time in the U.S. where all students studied classic works, giving them a grounding in history, philosophy and the arts. Some still receive such education (our Foundation's president is an alum of St. John's) but too often these days such works are neglected, or at best a student reads the Cliff's Notes version.

I first discovered Perseus -- named, by the way, for the demigod son of Zeus who kills Medusa only to become the subject of a cheesy movie starring Harry Hamlin -- a few months ago during research I'm currently conducting on digital books. It struck me as a marvelous example of the power of the Internet, spreading knowledge globally at no charge. Copyright apparently isn't a concern. The site says that any copyrighted works are posted with the copyright holder's consent, but much of their content is in the public domain. (There are a lot of great works in the public domain; not even the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act protected The Iliad or The Odyssey.)

I enjoyed searching Herodotus recently upon my return from Greece to see what the Father of History had to say about some of the ancient sites I had visited. Before the trip I boned up on my Greek mythology. But this site offers more than classical Greek works, and can do far more than enhance a vacation.

I can understand the motives of those who are focused on ends -- more content, even snippets, online -- at the expense of means. Still, I fully believe that more and more rich content will be legally posted online as the Internet grows and our society finds ways to successfully promote property rights, incentives for creativity, and access to knowledge.

posted by Patrick Ross @ 5:12 PM | Academia, Access: Commons, Fair Use, Orphan Works, Public Domain, Books

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