Open Library is an online project intended to create "one web page for every book ever published". Created by Aaron Swartz,[3][4]Brewster Kahle,[5] Alexis Rossi,[6] Anand Chitipothu,[6] and Rebecca Malamud,[6] Open Library is a project of the Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization. It has been funded in part by grants from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation. Open Library provides online digital copies in multiple formats, created from images of many public domain, out-of-print, and in-print books.
Its book information is collected from the Library of Congress, other libraries, and Amazon.com, as well as from user contributions through a wiki-like interface.[4] If books are available in digital form, a button labeled "Read" appears next to its catalog listing. Digital copies of the contents of each scanned book are distributed as encrypted e-books (created from images of scanned pages), audiobooks and streaming audio (created from the page images using OCR and text-to-speech software), unencrypted images of full pages from OpenLibrary.org and Archive.org, and APIs for automated downloading of page images.[7] Links to where books can be purchased or borrowed are also provided.
There are different entities in the database:
authors
works (which are the aggregate of all books with the same title and text)
editions (which are different publications of the corresponding works)
Open Library claims to have over 20 million records in its database.[8] Copies of the contents of tens of thousands of modern books have been made available from 150 libraries and publishers for ebookcontrolled digital lending.[9] Other books including in-print and in-copyright books have been scanned from copies in library collections, library discards, and donations, and are also available for lending in digital form.[10] In total, the Open Library offers copies of over 1.4 million books for what it calls "digital lending", but critics have called distribution of digital copies a violation of copyright law. [11]
Technical
Open Library began in 2006 with Aaron Swartz as the original engineer and leader of the Open Library's technical team.[3][4] The project was led by George Oates from April 2009 to December 2011.[12] Oates was responsible for a complete site redesign during her tenure.[13] In 2015, the project was continued by Giovanni Damiola[6] and then Brenton Cheng[6] and Mek Karpeles[6] in 2016.
In the week of October 21, 2019, the Open Library website introduced a Book Sponsorship program,[17] which according to Cory Doctorow, "lets you direct a cash donation to pay for the purchase and scanning of any books. In return, you are first in line to check that book out when it is available, and then anyone who holds an Open Library library card can check it out.".[18] The feature was developed by Mek Karpeles, Tabish Shaikh,[6] and other members of the community.[19]
Books for the blind and dyslexic
The website was relaunched adding ADA compliance and offering over 1 million modern and older books to the print disabled in May 2010[20] using the DAISY Digital Talking Book.[21] Under certain provisions of United States copyright law, libraries are sometimes able to reproduce copyrighted works in formats accessible to users with disabilities.[22][23]
Copyright violation accusations
The Open Library has justified its ability to offer full contents of books in digital formats as part of the first-sale doctrine and fair use law.[24][25] The Open Library owns a physical copy of each book that they have made available, and thus argue that the lending out of one digital scan of the book in a controlled manner falls within the first-sale doctrine, a practice known as Controlled Digital Lending and in use by multiple public and academic libraries.[25]
Since its launch, the Open Library has been accused of mass copyright violation by numerous groups,[25] including the American Authors Guild,[26] the British Society of Authors,[27] the Australian Society of Authors,[28] the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America,[29] the US National Writers Union,[30] and a coalition of 37 national and international organizations of "writers, translators, photographers, and graphic artists; unions, organizations, and federations representing the creators of works included in published books; book publishers; and reproduction rights and public lending rights organizations".[31] The UK Society of Authors threatened legal action in 2019 unless the Open Library agreed to cease distribution of copyrighted works.[32]
The Open Library further came under criticism from several authors and publishers groups when it created the National Emergency Library in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. Under these exigent circumstances, the National Emergency Library removed the waitlists of all books in its Open Library collection and allowed any number of digital copies of a book to be downloaded as an encrypted file that would be unusable after two weeks, asserting that this unlimited borrowing was a reasonable exception under the national emergency to allow educational functions to continue since physical libraries and bookstores were forced to be shuttered.[25] The Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers, the National Writers Union, and others argued that this allowed unlimited copyright infringement and denied revenues from distribution of authorized digital copies of books to authors who also needed relief during the COVID-19 national emergency.[25] Though the Open Library asserted that the copies of entire books in e-book format were still encrypted and the unlimited borrowing was for educational purposes, the National Writers Union asserted that images of each page of each book could still be accessed on the Web without encryption or other controls.[7][33]
Four major publishers—Hachette, Penguin Random House, John Wiley & Sons, and HarperCollins, all members of the Association of American Publishers—filed a lawsuit in the Southern New York Federal District Court against the Internet Archive in June 2020, asserting the Open Library project violated numerous copyrights.[34] In their suit, the publishers claimed "Without any license or any payment to authors or publishers, [the Internet Archive] scans print books, uploads these illegally scanned books to its servers, and distributes verbatim digital copies of the books in whole via public-facing websites. With just a few clicks, any Internet-connected user can download complete digital copies of in-copyright books from [the] defendant."[35] The publishers were represented by the law firms Davis Wright Tremaine and Oppenheim + Zebrak.[36] The Internet Archive ended the National Emergency Library on June 16, 2020, instead of the intended June 30 date, and requested the publishers to "call off their costly assault".[37]
^Bookfinch; Chitipothu, Anand; Oates, George; West, Jessamyn (2013-10-10). "Using Open Library Data § Who owns the Open Library catalog?".
^ ab"openlibrary/LICENSE at master · internetarchive/openlibrary · GitHub". GitHub.com. from the original on 2017-01-22. Retrieved 2015-06-26.
^ ab"A library bigger than any building". BBC News. 2007-07-31. from the original on 2009-11-27. Retrieved 2010-07-06.
^ abcGrossman, Wendy M (2009-01-22). "Why you can't find a library book in your search engine". The Guardian. London. from the original on 2014-01-14. Retrieved 2010-07-06.
^"Aaron Swartz: howtoget". Aaronsw.jottit.com. from the original on 2015-05-23. Retrieved 2015-06-05.
^ abcdefg"The Open Library Team". Open Library. from the original on 2018-07-17. Retrieved 2018-07-16.
^ abHasbrouck, Edward (16 April 2020). "What is the Internet Archive doing with our books?". National Writers Union. Retrieved 2020-05-07.
^"About Us". Openlibrary.org. from the original on 2015-06-27. Retrieved 2015-06-26.
^"Internet Archive Forums: In-Library eBook Lending Program Launched". 2011-02-22. from the original on 2015-07-17. Retrieved 2015-06-26.
^"FAQ on Controlled Digital Lending (CDL)". 13 February 2019. Retrieved 2019-02-14.
^Lee, Timothy B. (2020-03-28). "Internet Archive offers 1.4 million copyrighted books for free online". Ars Technica. from the original on 2020-03-28. Retrieved 2020-04-20.
^"George". Openlibrary.org. from the original on 2017-02-22. Retrieved 2015-06-26.
^Oates, George (2010-03-17). "Announcing the Open Library redesign « The Open Library Blog". Blog.openlibrary.org. from the original on 2015-06-27. Retrieved 2015-06-26.
^"internetarchive/openlibrary · GitHub". GitHub.com. from the original on 2015-08-10. Retrieved 2015-06-26.
^"About the Technology". Openlibrary.org. from the original on 2015-06-27. Retrieved 2015-06-26.
^"Developers / Licensing". Openlibrary.org. from the original on 2015-06-27. Retrieved 2015-06-26.
^"The Internet Archive Book Drive | Open Library". openlibrary.org. Retrieved 2022-06-05.
^Doctorow, Cory (2019-10-22). "The Internet Archive's Open Library will let you sponsor a book, paying for it to be scanned". BoingBoing. from the original on 2019-10-23. Retrieved 2019-10-24.
^El-Sabrout, Omar Rafik. "Scan On Demand: Building the World's Open Library, Together". The Open Library Blog. from the original on 2019-10-24. Retrieved 2019-10-24.
^"Project puts 1M books online for blind, dyslexic | UTSanDiego.com". Signonsandiego.com. 2010-05-05. from the original on 2011-12-17. Retrieved 2015-06-26.
^"Welcome to Daisy Books for the Print Disabled". Internet Archive. from the original on 2013-01-04. Retrieved 2012-12-10.
^"NLS Factsheets: Copyright Law Amendment, 1996: PL 104-197". Library of Congress NLS Factsheets. Library of Congress. from the original on 2017-05-21.
^Scheid, Maria. "Copyright and Accessibility". Copyright Corner. The Ohio State University Libraries. from the original on 2016-06-30.
^Hansen, David R.; Courtney, Kyle K. (2018). A White Paper on Controlled Digital Lending of Library Books (Report). Controlled Digital Lendings by Libraries. from the original on 2019-08-02. Retrieved 2020-04-02.
^ abcdeGrady, Constance (2020-04-02). "Why authors are so angry about the Internet Archive's Emergency Library". Vox. from the original on 2020-04-04. Retrieved 2020-04-02.
^The Authors Guild. "Open Letter to Internet Archive and Other Proponents of 'Controlled Digital Lending'". JotForm. from the original on 2019-07-28. Retrieved 2019-04-04.
^The Society of Authors. "Open letter to Internet Archive about 'Controlled Digital Lending'". JotForm. from the original on 2019-07-28. Retrieved 2019-04-04.
^"Open Library: copyright infringement". Australian Society of Authors. 2019-01-21. from the original on 2019-08-20. Retrieved 2019-02-10.
^"Infringement Alert". Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. 2018-01-08. from the original on 2019-02-12. Retrieved 2019-02-10.
^Hasbrouck, Edward (2019-02-13). "NWU denounces 'Controlled Digital Lending'". National Writers Union.
^"Controlled Digital Lending (CDL): An appeal to readers and librarians from the victims of CDL". National Writers Union. 13 February 2019. Retrieved 2019-02-14.
^Flood, Alison (2019-01-22). "Internet Archive's ebook loans face UK copyright challenge". The Guardian. London. from the original on 2019-02-12. Retrieved 2019-02-10.
^Hasbrouck, Edward (24 March 2020). "Internet Archive removes controls on "lending" of bootleg e-books". National Writers Union. Retrieved 2020-05-07.
^Bustillos, Maria (2020-09-10). "Publishers Are Taking the Internet to Court". The Nation.
^Brandom, Russell (2020-06-01). "Publishers sue Internet Archive over Open Library ebook lending". The Verge. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
^"Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive for Systematic Mass Scanning and Distribution of Literary Works". AAP. 2020-06-01.
^Lee, Timothy (2020-06-11). "Internet Archive ends "emergency library" early to appease publishers". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2020-06-14.
The Open Library public domain audiobook at LibriVox (Text of the speech given by Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, at the launch of the Open Library in October 2005)
January 26, 2023
open, library, online, project, intended, create, page, every, book, ever, published, created, aaron, swartz, brewster, kahle, alexis, rossi, anand, chitipothu, rebecca, malamud, project, internet, archive, nonprofit, organization, been, funded, part, grants, . Open Library is an online project intended to create one web page for every book ever published Created by Aaron Swartz 3 4 Brewster Kahle 5 Alexis Rossi 6 Anand Chitipothu 6 and Rebecca Malamud 6 Open Library is a project of the Internet Archive a nonprofit organization It has been funded in part by grants from the California State Library and the Kahle Austin Foundation Open Library provides online digital copies in multiple formats created from images of many public domain out of print and in print books Open LibraryScreenshotOpen Library homepage in September 2011Type of siteDigital library indexAvailable inEnglishRevenueDonationURLopenlibrary wbr orgCommercialNoRegistrationFreeLaunched2006 17 years ago 2006 Current statusActiveContent licensedata public domain 1 source code AGPLv3 2 Contents 1 Book database and digital lending library 2 Technical 3 Book sponsorship program 4 Books for the blind and dyslexic 5 Copyright violation accusations 6 See also 7 References 8 External linksBook database and digital lending library EditIts book information is collected from the Library of Congress other libraries and Amazon com as well as from user contributions through a wiki like interface 4 If books are available in digital form a button labeled Read appears next to its catalog listing Digital copies of the contents of each scanned book are distributed as encrypted e books created from images of scanned pages audiobooks and streaming audio created from the page images using OCR and text to speech software unencrypted images of full pages from OpenLibrary org and Archive org and APIs for automated downloading of page images 7 Links to where books can be purchased or borrowed are also provided There are different entities in the database authors works which are the aggregate of all books with the same title and text editions which are different publications of the corresponding works Open Library claims to have over 20 million records in its database 8 Copies of the contents of tens of thousands of modern books have been made available from 150 libraries and publishers for ebook controlled digital lending 9 Other books including in print and in copyright books have been scanned from copies in library collections library discards and donations and are also available for lending in digital form 10 In total the Open Library offers copies of over 1 4 million books for what it calls digital lending but critics have called distribution of digital copies a violation of copyright law 11 Technical EditOpen Library began in 2006 with Aaron Swartz as the original engineer and leader of the Open Library s technical team 3 4 The project was led by George Oates from April 2009 to December 2011 12 Oates was responsible for a complete site redesign during her tenure 13 In 2015 the project was continued by Giovanni Damiola 6 and then Brenton Cheng 6 and Mek Karpeles 6 in 2016 The site was redesigned and relaunched in May 2010 Its codebase is on GitHub 14 The site uses Infobase its own database framework based on PostgreSQL and Infogami its own Wiki engine written in Python 15 The source code to the site is published under the GNU Affero General Public License 16 2 Book sponsorship program EditIn the week of October 21 2019 the Open Library website introduced a Book Sponsorship program 17 which according to Cory Doctorow lets you direct a cash donation to pay for the purchase and scanning of any books In return you are first in line to check that book out when it is available and then anyone who holds an Open Library library card can check it out 18 The feature was developed by Mek Karpeles Tabish Shaikh 6 and other members of the community 19 Books for the blind and dyslexic EditThe website was relaunched adding ADA compliance and offering over 1 million modern and older books to the print disabled in May 2010 20 using the DAISY Digital Talking Book 21 Under certain provisions of United States copyright law libraries are sometimes able to reproduce copyrighted works in formats accessible to users with disabilities 22 23 Copyright violation accusations EditThe Open Library has justified its ability to offer full contents of books in digital formats as part of the first sale doctrine and fair use law 24 25 The Open Library owns a physical copy of each book that they have made available and thus argue that the lending out of one digital scan of the book in a controlled manner falls within the first sale doctrine a practice known as Controlled Digital Lending and in use by multiple public and academic libraries 25 Since its launch the Open Library has been accused of mass copyright violation by numerous groups 25 including the American Authors Guild 26 the British Society of Authors 27 the Australian Society of Authors 28 the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America 29 the US National Writers Union 30 and a coalition of 37 national and international organizations of writers translators photographers and graphic artists unions organizations and federations representing the creators of works included in published books book publishers and reproduction rights and public lending rights organizations 31 The UK Society of Authors threatened legal action in 2019 unless the Open Library agreed to cease distribution of copyrighted works 32 The Open Library further came under criticism from several authors and publishers groups when it created the National Emergency Library in response to the COVID 19 pandemic in March 2020 Under these exigent circumstances the National Emergency Library removed the waitlists of all books in its Open Library collection and allowed any number of digital copies of a book to be downloaded as an encrypted file that would be unusable after two weeks asserting that this unlimited borrowing was a reasonable exception under the national emergency to allow educational functions to continue since physical libraries and bookstores were forced to be shuttered 25 The Authors Guild the Association of American Publishers the National Writers Union and others argued that this allowed unlimited copyright infringement and denied revenues from distribution of authorized digital copies of books to authors who also needed relief during the COVID 19 national emergency 25 Though the Open Library asserted that the copies of entire books in e book format were still encrypted and the unlimited borrowing was for educational purposes the National Writers Union asserted that images of each page of each book could still be accessed on the Web without encryption or other controls 7 33 Four major publishers Hachette Penguin Random House John Wiley amp Sons and HarperCollins all members of the Association of American Publishers filed a lawsuit in the Southern New York Federal District Court against the Internet Archive in June 2020 asserting the Open Library project violated numerous copyrights 34 In their suit the publishers claimed Without any license or any payment to authors or publishers the Internet Archive scans print books uploads these illegally scanned books to its servers and distributes verbatim digital copies of the books in whole via public facing websites With just a few clicks any Internet connected user can download complete digital copies of in copyright books from the defendant 35 The publishers were represented by the law firms Davis Wright Tremaine and Oppenheim Zebrak 36 The Internet Archive ended the National Emergency Library on June 16 2020 instead of the intended June 30 date and requested the publishers to call off their costly assault 37 See also Edit Internet portalFree Software licensing Project Gutenberg Google Books LibraryThing List of AGPL web applications List of digital library projects Online Public Access Catalog WorldCatReferences Edit Bookfinch Chitipothu Anand Oates George West Jessamyn 2013 10 10 Using Open Library Data Who owns the Open Library catalog a b openlibrary LICENSE at master internetarchive openlibrary GitHub GitHub com Archived from the original on 2017 01 22 Retrieved 2015 06 26 a b A library bigger than any building BBC News 2007 07 31 Archived from the original on 2009 11 27 Retrieved 2010 07 06 a b c Grossman Wendy M 2009 01 22 Why you can t find a library book in your search engine The Guardian London Archived from the original on 2014 01 14 Retrieved 2010 07 06 Aaron Swartz howtoget Aaronsw jottit com Archived from the original on 2015 05 23 Retrieved 2015 06 05 a b c d e f g The Open Library Team Open Library Archived from the original on 2018 07 17 Retrieved 2018 07 16 a b Hasbrouck Edward 16 April 2020 What is the Internet Archive doing with our books National Writers Union Retrieved 2020 05 07 About Us Openlibrary org Archived from the original on 2015 06 27 Retrieved 2015 06 26 Internet Archive Forums In Library eBook Lending Program Launched 2011 02 22 Archived from the original on 2015 07 17 Retrieved 2015 06 26 FAQ on Controlled Digital Lending CDL 13 February 2019 Retrieved 2019 02 14 Lee Timothy B 2020 03 28 Internet Archive offers 1 4 million copyrighted books for free online Ars Technica Archived from the original on 2020 03 28 Retrieved 2020 04 20 George Openlibrary org Archived from the original on 2017 02 22 Retrieved 2015 06 26 Oates George 2010 03 17 Announcing the Open Library redesign The Open Library Blog Blog openlibrary org Archived from the original on 2015 06 27 Retrieved 2015 06 26 internetarchive openlibrary GitHub GitHub com Archived from the original on 2015 08 10 Retrieved 2015 06 26 About the Technology Openlibrary org Archived from the original on 2015 06 27 Retrieved 2015 06 26 Developers Licensing Openlibrary org Archived from the original on 2015 06 27 Retrieved 2015 06 26 The Internet Archive Book Drive Open Library openlibrary org Retrieved 2022 06 05 Doctorow Cory 2019 10 22 The Internet Archive s Open Library will let you sponsor a book paying for it to be scanned BoingBoing Archived from the original on 2019 10 23 Retrieved 2019 10 24 El Sabrout Omar Rafik Scan On Demand Building the World s Open Library Together The Open Library Blog Archived from the original on 2019 10 24 Retrieved 2019 10 24 Project puts 1M books online for blind dyslexic UTSanDiego com Signonsandiego com 2010 05 05 Archived from the original on 2011 12 17 Retrieved 2015 06 26 Welcome to Daisy Books for the Print Disabled Internet Archive Archived from the original on 2013 01 04 Retrieved 2012 12 10 NLS Factsheets Copyright Law Amendment 1996 PL 104 197 Library of Congress NLS Factsheets Library of Congress Archived from the original on 2017 05 21 Scheid Maria Copyright and Accessibility Copyright Corner The Ohio State University Libraries Archived from the original on 2016 06 30 Hansen David R Courtney Kyle K 2018 A White Paper on Controlled Digital Lending of Library Books Report Controlled Digital Lendings by Libraries Archived from the original on 2019 08 02 Retrieved 2020 04 02 a b c d e Grady Constance 2020 04 02 Why authors are so angry about the Internet Archive s Emergency Library Vox Archived from the original on 2020 04 04 Retrieved 2020 04 02 The Authors Guild Open Letter to Internet Archive and Other Proponents of Controlled Digital Lending JotForm Archived from the original on 2019 07 28 Retrieved 2019 04 04 The Society of Authors Open letter to Internet Archive about Controlled Digital Lending JotForm Archived from the original on 2019 07 28 Retrieved 2019 04 04 Open Library copyright infringement Australian Society of Authors 2019 01 21 Archived from the original on 2019 08 20 Retrieved 2019 02 10 Infringement Alert Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America 2018 01 08 Archived from the original on 2019 02 12 Retrieved 2019 02 10 Hasbrouck Edward 2019 02 13 NWU denounces Controlled Digital Lending National Writers Union Controlled Digital Lending CDL An appeal to readers and librarians from the victims of CDL National Writers Union 13 February 2019 Retrieved 2019 02 14 Flood Alison 2019 01 22 Internet Archive s ebook loans face UK copyright challenge The Guardian London Archived from the original on 2019 02 12 Retrieved 2019 02 10 Hasbrouck Edward 24 March 2020 Internet Archive removes controls on lending of bootleg e books National Writers Union Retrieved 2020 05 07 Bustillos Maria 2020 09 10 Publishers Are Taking the Internet to Court The Nation Brandom Russell 2020 06 01 Publishers sue Internet Archive over Open Library ebook lending The Verge Retrieved 2020 06 01 Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive for Systematic Mass Scanning and Distribution of Literary Works AAP 2020 06 01 Lee Timothy 2020 06 11 Internet Archive ends emergency library early to appease publishers Ars Technica Retrieved 2020 06 14 External links Edit Wikidata has the properties Open Library ID P648 see uses Open Library subject ID P3847 see uses Official website The Open Library public domain audiobook at LibriVox Text of the speech given by Brewster Kahle founder of the Internet Archive at the launch of the Open Library in October 2005 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Open Library amp oldid 1124187735, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
