Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2005 06:07:11 -0800
From: Sam Pierce <scpierce at gmail.com>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at wsfa.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: New mass market pb format
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

Actually, Google has an excellent idea of what it costs to scan and
OCR all these books.  They had to create their own OCR programs (a
class mate is one of the key programmers) and have special scanners
built to their order.  All this to get their little blue bordered ads
for whale oil lamps and harpoon sharpening on the right side of the
screen as you read Moby Dick on line.

         -- sam

On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 09:43:16 -0500, Barry L. Newton <bnewton at ashcomp.com> wrote:
> As far as I can see, this will (if it actually comes off) swamp and
> overwhelm Gutenberg, which seems to rely on the goodwill of members of the
> public to scan and correct or even type in the full text of older works.
>
> I have my suspicions that the good folks at Google have badly
> underestimated the total costs of this project, and that it will turn into
> a hugely embarassing, and potentially disastrous failure.
>
> Really hope I'm wrong about this.
>
> Barry
>