What would you call a library with an “online catalogue of every book ever published, everywhere in the world?” You might call it an Open Library, as does team leader Aaron Swartz.
But what’s the Open Library really for? According to this BBC article, Swartz suggests that “every book ever published needs a single authoritative page on the internet, a bit like a personal homepage.” It’s a library that has to be virtual (for space reasons), sort of like a virtual clearinghouse of books. Swartz continues “”Right now, if you want to link to a book on the web, the main place people go is Amazon. It’s kind of a bad idea for one commercial site to be the definitive source for book information on the internet, so we want to have a site that brings together information from commercial publishers, reviewers, users, libraries, everywhere.”
“This site will become the place where you can find interesting books and information about them, whether they’re in print, out of print, out of copyright or whatever.”
Check out their acknowledgements, mission and more, such as ‘non-destructive scanning for 10 cents a page’ (turning pages with mouse).
It’s wrong to rely on a commercial organisation?
Then why are they basing their financial support mainly on affiliate fees from the big booksellers?