Digitize This

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WR: All of these digitization efforts -- yours, Google's, others at universities and at the Library of Congress -- are moving us toward Brewster Kahle's dream of a universal online library. But they're all going at the problem in different ways. Do you worry that the world's literature will, in effect, become fragmented -- that Web users will have to choose between the Open Content Alliance's "universal" library and Google's "universal" library?

DM: We're encouraging participation in the alliance by all entities that are engaged in digitization efforts. The Open Content Alliance has already had a very preliminary discussion with Google about its participation, and we encourage Google to contribute work that they digitize to this alliance. We don't see the alliance as offering a competing digitization effort, but rather as establishing a set of guidelines for the sharing of content.

WR: That's very civic-minded. But what's in it for Yahoo?

DM: At Yahoo our goal is to help people find, use, share, and expand all human knowledge. The alliance is really part of our effort to expand knowledge. If you look at our media business, we're doing the same thing -- particularly with some of our more recent efforts to offer content directly to people, such as the Yahoo Music venture. To the extent there is an expansion of human knowledge online, there is a great advantage to be had by Yahoo and other search companies, since there's a need for ways to find that content.

Also, as part of our participation in the alliance, Yahoo will be providing search technology to allow people to search for content on the Open Content Alliance website. All of that content will also be searchable on Yahoo.

WR: What excites you personally about this project? Are you a closet bookworm?

DM: I am. When I was a kid, every day on my way home from school, I had to change buses at the local library, and every day I had a 45-minute block of time to spend in the library, just exploring what was there. Often 45 minutes would turn into an hour and 45 minutes, or two hours and 45 minutes.

What's so exciting about this new mission is the ability to move a lot of great content in libraries into a digital format and take advantage of all the benefits of being digital: [it] can be open 24 hours and can be open worldwide. It can house so much more content than can be housed in a physical library -- and not just books, but more and more libraries are moving beyond books to other media, like audio and video. It's fun for us to participate in an alliance like this that allows us to create such an awesome library online.