From David Rothman: “But there is one thing I currently cannot do with my Kindle despite all the sizzle in the commercials–read public library books.”

“Can the nonprofit world create a national digital library to put America’s collective intellectual wealth within everyone’s reach? Robert Darnton, the historian who directs the Harvard University Library, has been one of the most public champions of the idea.”

“A universal collection of knowledge. What libraries have always striven to provide, and what library patrons have always desired, has now been made possible by new information technologies.”

“Can we create a National Digital Library? That is, a comprehensive library of digitized books that will be easily accessible to the general public. Simple as it sounds, the question is extraordinarily complex.”

“Sloan’s motivation for funding this new organization has to do with fear of duplication of effort – they are supporting a wide range of efforts to digitize content, and realize that there’s a need for a central registry of content that’s been digitized. There’s also a great need to coordinate legal and advocacy efforts to make the larger vision of a global, multilingual open library possible.”