[Oberon] [EXT] My "Building Your Own Tools" Papers

[Colby Russell]

Thanks for the response, Paul, and to Robert: great idea!  I use
archive.org extensively and have borrowed a handful of books, but didn't
think of this.  (It's unlikely that I'm going to purchase a copy,
though.)

I'll stress that the Archive really does accept any donation.  From
their recent blog post "No Book/Music/Movie (All Media) Donation Too Big
or Small: Please Donate":

 > Looking around your home in the new year and wondering what to do with
 > all the stuff you’ve accumulated? [...] As people move or downsize,
 > they are often in a dilemma about what to do with their beloved books
 > and records. [...] So what’s a preservation-minded person or
 > organization supposed to do with their extra books, records, or other
 > media? ¶ The Internet Archive is here to help!

<https://blog.archive.org/2021/01/05/downsizing-in-2021-donate-your-discarded-books-and-media-to-the-internet-archive/>

This would be an excellent option for anyone not wanting the history of
computing to be forgotten as a result of it being written through the
lens of overwhelming influence by the industry's victors--something
which I expect should be of interest to many of those on this list.

On 8/17/21 12:11 PM, Paul Reed wrote:
 > they are quite confusing about it since they say their primary purpose
 > is to build a database of book metadata:
 >
 > https://openlibrary.org/help/faq/about#what
 >
 > However, reading on it seems that with a login you can indeed borrow
 > books.

Robert perhaps misspoke.  Open Library does aim to ingest all book
metadata to fulfill their goal of "one web page for every book ever
published".  In this sense, it's more akin to to a library's card
catalog, rather than the library's content itself.

archive.org, on the other hand (and which *is* a library), operates the
controlled digital lending program.  Open Library integrates with
archive.org services, so if there is a public domain scan available, or
if the book is available through digital lending, then the catalog entry
for that edition links directly to the archive.org-hosted version. Open
Library also happens to be a project by archive.org.  This is admittedly
pretty confusing.

-- 
Colby Russell