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I know there is an old thread on Google Books, but this sounds like an opportunity to get reprints in one's library, or in our public or museum libraries at least.
Reprints of rare books to be sold
Amazon teams up with a Victor company to digitize collections.
Matthew Daneman
Staff writer
Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle
(June 22, 2007) — Cupology, published in 1904, is 105 pages of old-time advice on throwing a shindig, from tips on making toasts to facts to recite for the edification of all.
But the volume has long been out of print, and if you've wanted it, you've had few options besides rare book dealers and driving 500 miles to the rare books collection at the Public Library of Cincinnati.
Now a Victor technology company will help a subsidiary of Amazon.com and an array of libraries around North America scan and digitize thousands of rare books and make reprints available for sale.
BookSurge, a print-on-demand arm of Amazon, and Kirtas Technologies, which makes robotic book scanning and digitization equipment, announced the venture Thursday.
Under the plan, university and public libraries will buy Kirtas equipment or send their rare books to a Kirtas-certified bureau and have the books scanned in, said Lotfi Belkhir, founder and chief executive of Kirtas. Reprints of the books will then be available for sale through Amazon.com.
The prices will be set by the individual libraries, said BookSurge spokeswoman Stacey Hurwitz.
A variety of libraries have signed on, including Emory University in Atlanta, the University of Maine, the Toronto Public Library and the Public Library of Cincinnati.
"We're talking about tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of books per library," Belkhir said. "Emory is going to digitize 200,000 alone."
Kirtas (pronounced KEER-tas) employs 96 people, up from 46 four months ago, and expects "significant" employment growth, Belkhir said.
Libraries are providing books that are in the public domain or to which they own the rights. In exchange, they will get a cut of the income from reprints sold by BookSurge.
Kimber L. Fender, executive director of the Public Library of Cincinnati, said its rare books collection has more than 53,000 volumes.
The library hasn't decided how many it plans to digitize, she said, and is hoping for a $250,000 state grant to pay for the Kirtas equipment and computer storage for the scanned book files.
MDANEMAN@DemocratandChronicle.com
Reprints of rare books to be sold
Amazon teams up with a Victor company to digitize collections.
Matthew Daneman
Staff writer
Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle
(June 22, 2007) — Cupology, published in 1904, is 105 pages of old-time advice on throwing a shindig, from tips on making toasts to facts to recite for the edification of all.
But the volume has long been out of print, and if you've wanted it, you've had few options besides rare book dealers and driving 500 miles to the rare books collection at the Public Library of Cincinnati.
Now a Victor technology company will help a subsidiary of Amazon.com and an array of libraries around North America scan and digitize thousands of rare books and make reprints available for sale.
BookSurge, a print-on-demand arm of Amazon, and Kirtas Technologies, which makes robotic book scanning and digitization equipment, announced the venture Thursday.
Under the plan, university and public libraries will buy Kirtas equipment or send their rare books to a Kirtas-certified bureau and have the books scanned in, said Lotfi Belkhir, founder and chief executive of Kirtas. Reprints of the books will then be available for sale through Amazon.com.
The prices will be set by the individual libraries, said BookSurge spokeswoman Stacey Hurwitz.
A variety of libraries have signed on, including Emory University in Atlanta, the University of Maine, the Toronto Public Library and the Public Library of Cincinnati.
"We're talking about tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of books per library," Belkhir said. "Emory is going to digitize 200,000 alone."
Kirtas (pronounced KEER-tas) employs 96 people, up from 46 four months ago, and expects "significant" employment growth, Belkhir said.
Libraries are providing books that are in the public domain or to which they own the rights. In exchange, they will get a cut of the income from reprints sold by BookSurge.
Kimber L. Fender, executive director of the Public Library of Cincinnati, said its rare books collection has more than 53,000 volumes.
The library hasn't decided how many it plans to digitize, she said, and is hoping for a $250,000 state grant to pay for the Kirtas equipment and computer storage for the scanned book files.
MDANEMAN@DemocratandChronicle.com