After I read the introduction and the first chapter of Cohen and Rosenzweig’s Digital HIstory I agree with the idea of scanning articles, documents, and other sources for the general public to explore and view. I have been to the National Archives in College Park, MD two times and it is definitely expensive to fly down and make copies for about twenty-five cents each page! To have documents and other resources available online would revolutionize research, even though it is amazing to open up a file folder and find the original documents inside.
The article Scan This Book! is a different story entirely. I think having books scanned online such as the writings of Abraham Lincoln are valuable resources which would be difficult for the average researcher to access if they went to a library which had it. I am split about whether every book should be scanned and put out into the public. While I see the need to get abandoned works online the other side of the argument is should there be a charge for accessing the books? Even though a majority of publishers do not have a list of copyrighted books, I think that if someone would like to read a book online then it should be free but the search function and the printing option should require to have a small fee. This fee may not go to author or a kin of the author but if could be given to a charity or a program to help keep libraries open.
I found the articles from Google and it’s efforts to scan books into an idex to be informative and interesting. The biggest problem I have with Google’s crusade to scan as many books as it can is the problem of the gray-area of copyright laws. Not only are current books in danger of losing revenue but I am hoping to complete a co-authored book(fingers crossed) and to have Google scan it and have it available for anyone to view would not be right. Granted if there was a book by an author from 150 years ago and there is no record of the copyright for it then it would be fine with me to post it but again have a fee to use any of the information via cut and paste or printing. To be honest I am very split about what my views are about the subject of scanning since I grew up with a physical copy of a book which you could take anywhere and not have to worry if your laptop runs out of batteries while reading it on a plane.
Overall, I think that the scanning of books online is a technological advancement which will change how historians, teachers, and ordinary people view history. I am still weary about copyright issues but if they it starts saving me a $120 roundtrip plane ticket and $70 worth of copying then I guess it will be worth it in the end.
