Office of Science & Technology - 1.5 Million Books Digitalized and Still Counting – “The Million Book Project” Hits Its Target and Aims for More
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1.5 Million Books Digitalized and Still Counting – “The Million Book Project” Hits Its Target and Aims for More Print E-mail
bridges vol. 16, December 2007 / Feature Article

by Juliet M. Beverly
Ancient Library of Alexandria_JuB_small.jpg
Artistic reconstruction of the Great Library of Alexandria by O. Von Corven.
Once upon a time in the 3rd century BC, Demetrius Phalerus, a student of Aristotle, suggested to the then ruler of Egypt, Ptolemy I, the creation of a universal library associated with the Mouseion (Temple of the Muses), a great learning center in Alexandria, Egypt. With this suggestion, the Royal Library of Alexandria, Egypt, was born. The library was famed as the largest library in the ancient world and presumably contained about 700,000 manuscripts, with every original text hand-copied by a scribe and indexed. Today, in the 21st century, The Million Book Project has taken the vision of Demetrius and put it online.  

The Million Book Project, an international venture led by Carnegie Mellon University in the United States, Zhejiang University in China, the Indian Institute of Science in India, and the Library at Alexandria in Egypt, has completed the digitalization of more than 1.5 million books, now available online. Although Google, Microsoft, and the Internet Archive have all launched major book digitalization projects, the Million Book Project represents the world's largest, university-based, digital library of freely accessible books.

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