The expansion comes as a result of participation in the development of the Open Library, working in partnership with the non-profit Internet Archive. The goal of the Open Library initiative is to create one webpage for every book ever published. To date, it has collected over 20 million records.
“I’m really excited about our participation,” Wayne Perryman, Chair of the Library’s Access Services Department, says. “Our involvement with the Open Library opens up a panorama of electronic resources that would not otherwise be available to the University community.”
Last spring University President Rollin Richmond brought the Open Library to the Perryman’s attention, who was at the time serving as Interim Dean of the Library. The President inquired as to whether the HSU Library would be willing to become a partner in the Open Library initiative. Perryman notes that it didn’t take long for the idea to catch on and garner support from other Library personnel, once the potential benefits became clear.
Now, when users search for a book title in the HSU Library Catalog, those titles that are also in the Open Library catalog will automatically include a button providing access to the electronic version, indicating either “Read eBook,” if the eBook is available, or “eBook Checked Out,” if the eBook is in use by another borrower. Once the eBook is selected, the user will be prompted to enter Open Library credentials or create new, free account.
Once users have created a free account with the Open Library, which is required to access the eBooks in their catalog, they will then have the option to read the title in their web browser, download a PDF copy, or download an electronic copy for e-readers such as Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iPad.
“You can access the Open Library records at any time, any day of the week, from anywhere you have Internet access,” Perryman says. “Having these resources available might help out with that paper you’re working on late Sunday night, that’s due Monday morning.”
Humboldt State University is the first campus in the California State University system to partner with the Internet Archive in the development of the Open Library. In May, HSU made its first shipment of books to add to the Open Library’s growing collection. With funds provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Internet Archive staff will digitize up to 100 books at no cost to the University.
During the digitization process, submitted books are scanned, page-by-page. Then, the scanned images are run through an optical character recognition (OCR) program. The OCR process turns the scanned image into a page of accessible text, which is fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. According to Internet Archive personnel, it takes approximately 12 hours to digitize an average 300-page book.
With the first 100 books submitted, Perryman and his colleagues selected works that are unlikely to be submitted by other institutions. Many of those submissions are of particular interest to the local community. They include, for example, works of local authors, books documenting local history, and University publications, among others.
Recently, the Library received an award of $9,500 in Lottery Funds from the President’s Office, which will make it possible for HSU to submit 300 more titles to the Internet Archive for digitization this year, further adding to the growing resources available through the Open Library.
To become a member of Open Library, visit the website at openlibrary.org.
Visit the Humboldt State Library’s website at library.humboldt.edu.