Week 2 Notes

Digitization: Is It Worth It? 

The article reminds me as how the libraries use Return of Investment to assess their worth. Stuart talks about the benefit of the digitization project. The benefit goes to small group of the scholars. To me, this is difficult part to determine, after all, the internet is anonymous. Accessibility is the topic- in case of the digitization project, it would mean accessibility is limited to the technology. The project becomes a form of preservation. Stuart talks about the costs of the project... he did not talk about the object itself which is entirely different can of worms. For this article, he chose to discuss the broad topic which is the cost of the digitization. It is noteworthy to see this article was published in 2001. Technology have changed rapidly since then.

European Libraries 

This article sheds a light on the persuasive power of the Google. It is interesting to see the reactions among the countries. France reacted by encouraging the local alliances rather than going to the Google. Even through they assert they are not "at war" with the Google. To keep in mind for the background,  E.U. do not like business monopolizing the market. (Remember the ruling in European Commission which orders Microsoft company to remove its programs in order to allow the competition to "flourish".) Against such background, it is not surprising to see such resistance. However this does not stop some libraries from engaging in confidential talks with Google. Money is always the problem for all projects. Like Stuart says in his article, digitization compiles more cost than the original project itself. This is glaring problem faced by the European libraries. Interesting part of the article is the main problem is in the basic digitization.  In spite of the digitization problem, the European libraries have moved on forward to developing their collection.
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Wikipedia Entries 

Compression entry is harder to understand due to complex algorithms terms which I am ignorant in. From what I am able to understand, compression basically cuts the corners to make room on the memory drives (cd). Cutting corners affects the quality of the object- for instance, video become blurry or pixelated. I am not able to see the solution in compression entry. If anyone did, please let me know in the comments!