NPR's Science Friday :: Encyclopedia of Life / Digital Libraries

Originally broadcast by NPR's Science Friday on May 11, 2007.

Want to flip through the pages of every book in the world? Several efforts are working to digitize and make available online all the information that might be hiding on the shelves of libraries around the world. We'll talk to leaders in the digital libraries community, and talk about just how they intend to go about bringing every book published into the online world.

Plus, this week scientists announced a new effort to create an online encyclopedia of life. Pulling information from labs, libraries, and museums around the world, the project aims to make a multimedia web page for every known species on the planet. We'll talk to one of the project's leaders.

Guests:

Gary G. Borisy - Member of the Steering Committee, Encyclopedia of Life Project

Brewster Kahle - Digital Librarian, Director and Co-Founder The Internet Archive

Michael S. Hart - Founder, Project Gutenberg

Michael Keller - University Librarian Director of Academic Information Resources Stanford University