Bat Terrier, like most writers, is a big believer in libraries, so Robert Darnton‘s idea of a national digital library seems like a Very Good Thing Indeed. (For more details, see this post.) A national digital library, as Darnton envisions it, would make freely available via the Internet virtually all of the books and other documents now held by America’s best research libraries. There are hurdles, of course, primarily legal, but the cost is surprisingly cheap, compared, say, to the costs of maintaining a war. Well worth thinking about as we muddle onward. More detail and discussion here.
