Even if copyright problems are solved, the process of digitizing millions of historical books would be impressively expensive.
Predictor: Stoll, Clifford
Prediction, in context:In his 1995 book “Silicon Snake Oil,” writer Clifford Stoll shares his take on the Internet’s future implications for libraries and the promise of complete libraries online:”Even if copyright problems are solved, the process of digitizing millions of historical books would be impressively expensive. They’d have to be scanned in at a cost of 50 cents to $3 a page. So each book would cost $100 to digitize … someone has to proofread and correct the text. Expensive. Because digitizing costs so much, commercial services supply full-text retrieval to only a few thousand periodicals. This may sound like a lot of information, but the Library of Congress actively subscribes to some 65,000 newspapers, magazines and journals … God knows how much it would cost to put their entire 20 million books online.”
Biography:Clifford Stoll was an astrophysicist who also wrote the influential books “Silicon Snake Oil” (1995) and “The Cuckoo’s Egg.” A long-time network user, Stoll made “Silicon Snake Oil” his platform for finding fault with the Internet hype of the early 1990s. He pointed out the pitfalls of a completely networked society and offered arguments in opposition to the hype. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: Libraries/Databases
Name of publication: Silicon Snake Oil
Title, headline, chapter name: Wherein the Author Considers the Future of the Library, the Myth of Free Information, and a Novel Way to Heat Bathwater
Quote Type: Partial quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 180
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Tencer, Elizabeth L.