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How many of you would use a digital library?

5 points by alnayyir ↗ HN
I mean a true digital library that has non-public works that haven't been expired yet. I've been working out a legal contraption in my mind combined with some locative ideas, and I might have some ideas for working it out. Anyway, this would be an ad supported venture.

I'm not certain how I'd make the media accessible, I definitely don't want a scribd situation, and I want to leave the option of downloading for use on PDAs and other devices.

I guess my question is...should I bother? I came up the idea out of pure frustration in trying to find a Gore Vidal novel I wanted on the internet. Now I'm getting a damn library card tomorrow (today technically).

If you would make use of this, how frequently would you do so?

12 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 29.7 ms ] thread
Tichy
How would your service differ from Scribd?
alnayyir
It would actually have all the books a standard library would have.

Like Gore Vidal.

Anon84
That would depend on the way it was set up... In my view, it would require a few specific ingredients:

1. Standard formats (PDF, txt, html, etc... heck... even chm e djvu)

2. Offline access (PDA, laptops, etc...)

3. Printing

4. Sharing (iTunes like)

5. Easy searching within a given volume and across volumes (google books)

Of course doing all of this while preventing rampant copyright violations is the tricky part. O'Reilly doesn't seem to be doing too well (on the copyright part at least) with their safari online project. You can pretty much find any of their books you want if you know where to look. Apple seems to be doing a good job with iTunes. Maybe it's time to have someone doing the same for books. There are several websites online that try to do this, but the legality of the works they have is ofter fuzzy. I've been tinkering with the idea of making a "del.icio.us" or "arXiv" type of site where people could place links to books (mostly technical) that are currently out of copyright. Wherever possible, links to online bookstores where you could buy the book would also be provided.

tomjen
It would be possible to clearly watermark a PDF file with the serial number of the person who checked it out of the library. That way if it is leaked it shouldn't be too difficult to find the person who leaked it.

I would definitely use such a library if it existed, provided that it wasn't too expensive and had novels or books I could not find at my local (and free) public library.

Anon84
I'm guessing that it would also not be too hard to remove the watermark... just like people did with iTunes. On the other hand, that doesn't seem to have hindered Apple's revenue stream.
alnayyir
In my experience, you can only easily find tech books, which admittedly is usually what I want, but finding Gore Vidal was shockingly difficult (in this case, impossible).

Technical books that are out of copyright aren't likely of use. Books that are out of copyright by now are aaaaaaaancient.

cconstantine
It's an interesting idea, but I don't think any significant number of people want to do general reading on computer screens.

This is why there's a market for i-ink style screens.

You might get some traction if you provided a service that easily integrated with the ebook readers already out there (sony/kindle) and provide for people to "buy" them with deep discounts and a monthly subscription (like cell phones), or rent them for even less.

For heavy-readers $50/mo for netflix style "borrowing" of books over the internet plus an ebook reader may well be worth it.

alnayyir
I'm not certain how I want to do it yet, as far as payment or lack thereof goes. I definitely want to provide for ebook readers.

Personally I do tons of reading on my (blurry :( ) CRT screen, so I've never had much issue with that.

aredkin
I would give a lot for something like Google Books, but with a possibility of subscription, not buying from Amazon or some publisher. Don't think it's legally possible though...
alnayyir
I'm a law geek as a secondary to my computer geekery, I'm thinking of ideas. :)
demallien
I (like many here I guess), already have this, at least as far as technical books are concerned - it's called Safari Books. That coupled with an iPhone means that you have a massive collection of technical works in your pocket all of the time. It's brilliant. I finally have a solution for what to do when I'm at a party and I need to know the correct grammar for K&R style C.

It would be nice to have the same service for non-technical books. Amazon's Kindle service is not bad, but it's not really a library, you have to purchase each book...