"Harvard University and the New York Public Library ... will make only a fraction of their expansive holdings available before deciding whether to expand the program."
"Oxford University, in England, has also signed on with Google's digitization project, offering only books published before 1900."
They said these schools would be making "their collections" available online, but they did not say that they would make every book available online. Could this harm new writers? Perhaps. OTOH, having a generally more literate populace - if that is a result - might have the contrary effect.
The use of computers will never replace sitting under a tree by the lake with a cold one, flipping through the pages of some fascinating new story, or sitting at a desk in the evening, wading through a dusty and venerable tome.
I spend nearly my entire workday at the tube. In the evenings, I'm also often on. But one of my favorite things to do is to take a book down to the local coffee- house and just relax. (As my employer loans me a laptop, I will sometimes take IT down to the closest Starbucks and work.)
Things will change. We'll be able to do a lot of things we only dreamt of before, and a few things about which we never even fantasized. Much crap will go down. Rotors will sling much of it about the room. But when the mist settles, I'll still be sitting in the corner with a copy of some classic (in paper or or memory as it suits my mood), clothes-pin on my nose and swigging my favorite caffeinated beverage.
k
