Library Digitization
I've been working with the British Library for a while now, so it was great to get such a fantastic reception for the joint announcement of Microsoft digitising 100,000 out-of-copyright book in the next year - and even better to see something I've been directly involved in on the front page of the FT! Hopefully there's more to come as we move forward with Vista and Office 12 over the course of the next year and as our strategic relationship matures. Ever since I started working with the Library folks, I've gradually become aware of just how good the combination of our platform and their quality of content could be when pulled together - the level of curator-led detailed knowledge on their artifacts is really astonishing. In fact, one of the key issues with good search is often the lack of quality meta-data applied to the content; this is certainly not the case with the Bristish Library!
When BillG met Lynne Brindley (the Library's Chief Exec) he was shown some examples of the quality of ancient manuscripts they hold as well as correspondance between the likes of Darwin and Babbage. The BL DOM project has been underway for a while now with a remit to store the Library's digitised content and this naturally leads to the question of how documents produced electronically today will be viewable in 10, 20, 100 or even 1000 years time. Will the software needed to view the files be available? if not, can it be virtualised or emmulated? even if it can - will it give the same user experience as the original? Lots of questions that Microsoft and the Library as well as thousands of other organisations need to start getting to grips with. Should be a fun year or 10 or 1000 :-)
