Internet Archive has announced a new project where some book references on Wikipedia will be linked directly to books on the Internet Archive that are available to lend. It said that it has “transformed 130,000 references to books in Wikipedia into live links to 50,000 digitized Internet Archive books”. This initiative should help students with things like assignments when it comes to referencing work.
For a while now, the Internet Archive has been offering books through Controlled Digital Lending which allows users to take five books at a time, but like a library, you’ll only be able to take those books which haven’t already been checked out. With the referencing feature, you won’t have to take the whole book out because Internet Archive will give you a preview of the cited page instead.
Commenting on the new feature, Brewster Kahle, Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive, said:
“What has been written in books over many centuries is critical to informing a generation of digital learners. We hope to connect readers with books by weaving books into the fabric of the web itself, starting with Wikipedia.”
Internet Archive also mentioned that users can sponsor books in order to speed up digitising efforts. Over the coming years, the project is looking to bring four million books online.
4 Comments - Add comment