The library that never closes

[Robert]

The library that never closes

The scheme is to create a single page on the web for every book that has ever been published; an enormous, searchable catalogue of information about millions of books. It is still in beta, but already more than 23m books are in its system, drawing information from 19 major libraries and linking to the text of more than 1m out-of-copyright titles.

In a way, it's like a Wikipedia for printed material (indeed, it runs on wiki software, allowing anyone to add their own notes on different books or editions). And Oates, who took over the project this year, is hoping to turn it from a skilful attempt to ingest vast amounts of data into something that is useful to ordinary people.

The site can potentially pull information from all over the web – retailers, reviews, book clubs, forums and enthusiast sites – as well as from social networks that already exist for bibliophiles, such as LibraryThing or GoodReads.

[abecedarian]

Interesting. As I was looking around at Open Library, I was thinking about Worldcat.com and was pleasantly suprised to find that there was a link on scanned books that led to that site for folks who want to locate a library copy. I'll have to keep an eye on this site. Thanks for sharing!

[sparkchaser]

How is this different from Google book?

[abecedarian]

Originally Posted by sparkchaser

How is this different from Google book?

Good question. I just checked with them, and they have a link to worldcat too. Worldcat is cool; I just wish there was a way to connect them with my library system.

[Fantasy Moon]

This sounds like a great idea.

[Peder]

I'll wait.

[MarkCool]

Yes, this sounds to me great! I will wait for the release..:-)

[wilkette]

Originally Posted by MarkCool

Yes, this sounds to me great! I will wait for the release..:-)

No need. Visit openlibrary.org