[OGD] Digital orchid library

[Harvey Brenneise]

Thanks, Nina, for bringing up that important topic again.  As you no doubt 
remember, the AOS (the library committee, which I chaired) developed a 
rather extensive plan for digitizing the world's orchid literature.  I still 
believe it was and is a good plan.  However, the "powers that be" decided to 
take the library project in a different direction (as far as I know, just 
getting the AOS print library organized and in place).  Sad.  One of the 
positive outcomes that I believe the digital project would have is assisting 
judges with a more complete resource (and one that included excellent 
metadata--essentially digital indexing--so that relevant information could 
be easily found).  The plan included not only out-of-copyright materials, 
but also out-of-print but still copyrighted materials.  I won't reiterate 
all of that here.  As far as I know the plan is still available on my 
personal website.  And the initial books that were digitized are still 
available in the digital library web pages (and the catalog) of Michigan 
State University, a former partner in the project (I say former because the 
AOS refused to honor their signed contract for payment for services 
rendered). 

One significant event has occured in the digital library world since that 
time that bears notice, and that is the announcement by Google that they 
plan to digitize the entire "out of copyright" collections of some major 
libraries (my recollection is that they were Oxford, Harvard, Stanford, 
Berkeley and one other--New York Public, perhaps?).  I never heard if this 
was only books or included serials.  I'm sure there are significant orchid 
resources in at least some of these libraries (after all, the AOS used to be 
at Harvard), particularly in the botanical area.  None of these libraries 
that I know if has a particular horticulture emphasis or necessarily 
specializes in botany, for that matter.  Given that, and the fact that all 
of them are in English-speaking countries (and only one in Europe, if one 
considers the UK to be Europe!), I strongly suspect that some very valuable 
orchid resources would be missed in such a project. 

I'd call it a very good first step.  A serious digital orchid library 
project would see if that project could be expanded (or a complementary 
project begun) to ensure that a comprehensive digital orchid library was 
developed.  And of course, there would remain the issues around materials 
that are not yet in the public domain (and there might well be some 
soluttions to those, particularly those that are out of print). 

Sincerely,
Harvey
In sunny Seattle! 


_______________________________________________
the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD)
orchids@orchidguide.com
http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com