The Digital Stacks Project

Today more than ever, libraries need the highest returns possible on each dollar spent/invested. As the world’s biggest economies come back to life, there will undoubtedly be challenges, and library budgets may suffer. However, the potential study and research values that academic libraries contribute and the respect and appreciation for knowledge that public libraries promote cannot be lost simply because of budget cuts. There is, however, a bold plan for dramatically increasing the value of academic and public libraries to students, researchers, faculty and to all citizens.

Libraries can very cost-effectively provide unlimited, instant access to the most relevant and useful information and knowledge that their students, researchers, faculty and public patrons seek, garnered instantly from billions of pages of digitized scholarly monographs as well as selected open access content. This is made possible by:

  • The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (©-Law)
  • Many millions of items that have already been digitized by libraries
  • Thousands of KIC high-speed digitization systems currently in service in a thousand academic libraries that are compatible with new software and accessories that allow those systems to digitize one to two books per hour with structural metadata that can produce PDF bookmarks for introduction, preface, TOC, sections, chapters, appendices, etc., and output to numerous archive and content management systems; and a new 2020 Bookeye 5 V3 for only $8,499 that produces two preservation quality digital pages in less than 3 seconds and two access quality pages in under 2 seconds.
  • New technologies that ensure compliance with ©-Law and are vastly more effective at finding relevant information than search engines. The technologies include DSE Content Servers that use NAND SSD storage, unique software that makes research orders of magnitude faster and easier than current methods while ensuring ©-Law compliance, the latest computer CPUs, methods for distributing costs fairly, and new, compelling, ubiquitous yet unobtrusive opportunities for users to purchase scholarly content from publishers.

All that is needed is cooperation among academic libraries, especially members of HathiTrust, and public libraries with large collections of scholarly materials. Most public libraries will simply be beneficiaries.

The top thousand or so academic libraries have spent at least $50 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars on their print collections. This massive investment should not be cast aside simply because it is not digital. Here are four reasons that together form a compelling call to action:

  1. The access capabilities that libraries can provide under the protection of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 are tremendous and virtually unlimited.
  2. A large percentage of print collections content has already been digitized by the 120 academic library members of HathiTrust. The rest can be digitized in a year or so with the thousands of KIC systems in a thousand academic libraries. Most of these systems can be equipped with new software that allows nominally trained library workers to digitize two books per hour with structural/navigational metadata (e.g. PDF bookmarks for preface, introduction, TOC, sections, chapters, appendices, etc.), and a scan-bed option that captures book covers and spines in seconds. In addition, the 2020 generation of Bookeye scanners performs more than 50% faster than its predecessor.
  3. DLSG has the technologies that can provide instant access to billions of pages of digital versions of content that exists in print form in libraries, and ensure compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which eliminates restrictions such as ‘access limited to less than 10%’, and to ensure publisher support, digital fence technology to ensure the user is inside the library. In addition, DLSG has developed extremely powerful software for research that finds and presents the most relevant content in a way that is vastly superior to standard searches based on keywords typed by the researcher.
    Better than search. Two of the greatest contributions to modern Web search engines were made by Larry Page and Serge Brin: 1) ordering search results according to number and value of links from other Web sites; and 2) lightning fast execution. A search engine operating on a vast digital library of scholarly content can be built to execute with lightning speed, but scholarly content’s ‘linkbacks’ are limited to citations, which are insufficient to effectively cull and sort search results. Other methods must be found, and no matter how innovative they may be, when applied to a few keywords typed in by a researcher, those methods will not compare with the relevancy algorithms of DLSG’s HotLinks Research Tool.
  4. In the present day environment of publishers of scholarly content fighting for profits, academic libraries (for various reasons) not working together as well as they could be, a pervasive belief that ‘you can find it all on the Web’ and the consequent decline in perceived value of scholarly content to Americans at large, DLSG has devised a plan that will dramatically increase the value of academic libraries to their educational institutions, increase the value of public libraries to their patrons and increase profits of publishers of scholarly content by:
    • enhancing study with HotLinks Study Tool - instant access to alternate treatments of study topics, including all content while the student is in the library, and open access content when the student is outside the library;
    • tremendously enhancing research with HotLinks Research Tool and DSE Content Servers;
    • making HotLinks Research Tool available to all Americans via public libraries;
    • providing innovative new ways for scholarly content to be purchased, to fulfill the increase in demand resulting from the increase in general appreciation of scholarly content caused by Hotlinks Research & Study Tools.
COMPLETE TRANSFORMATION
COMPLETE TRANSFORMATION
PHYSICAL LIBRARY SPACE
PRINT COLLECTIONS
PRINT ↔ DIGITAL CONVERSION
Traditional Academic Library
Digital Age Academic Library

It can be said that the digital age began in the 1980s. However, it wasn’t until the Web began providing good answers to myriad questions, easily and virtually instantly that the perceived value of library print collections began to decline. Today, the value locked in academic library print collections can be unleashed with HotLinks, the Digital Stacks Project and the many millions of already digitized scholarly items.

Library Building

eReserves
Reference Material
The Stacks
Special Collections
Study Areas

Library Building

eReserves (mostly born digital)
Self-service "eReserves" &
Other high-Use Items
Reference Materials
Actively Used Stacks
Actively Used Special Collections
Study/Collaborative Areas

Offsite Storage Facility

Offsite Storage

Benefits:

Dramatically Increased Digital Content

Virtually all content, copyrighted and free, is accessible digitally, instantly, while inside the library via HotLinks. Outside the library, students and researchers can easily purchase the content they found using hotlinks, thus increasing publisher revenue by pushing the cost to the patrons who want access outside the library and will buy only what they want. The result: the library spends less and provides Substantially more value, patrons with a budget, purchase what they choose to, while patrons without a budget have free access while in the library (the fundamental reason libraries exist), and publishers support the new model because HotLinks promotes more sales.

eReserves → Self-serve

A large percentage of eReserves can be switched to self-service by placing a KIC digitization kiosk next to reserves bookcases. The same can be done for high-use items, including reference materials, allowing for unlimited copies of excerpts of no more than 10% of each volume to be scanned during each user visit, in compliance with copyright law. Self-service reserves are also a solid benefit.

substantially Reduced Print Collections Areas

Books that are rarely accessed are moved to storage. The remaining actively accessed books are placed near high speed self-service digitization kiosks allowing for unlimited digital copies with no digital rights costs.

Dramatically Increased Study/Collaborate Space

Much more study/collaborate & research space is needed to support the substantial increase in value the library provides to its patrons while they are in the library.

KAT Stacks View

Whether in the stacks, in a high-use self-serve digitization area or in storage, KAT Stacks makes it easy to find items. KAT Stacks Provides a visual ‘virtual reality’ browsing experience with the option to browse all books in one complete collection, including special collections, offsite storage and high use bookshelves in self-service digitization areas.

Traditional Academic Library
Digital Age Academic Library

It can be said that the digital age began in the 1980s. However, it wasn’t until the Web began providing good answers to myriad questions, easily and virtually instantly that the perceived value of library print collections began to decline. Today, the value locked in academic library print collections can be unleashed with HotLinks, the Digital Stacks Project and the many millions of already digitized scholarly items.

Library Building

eReserves
Reference Material
The Stacks
Special Collections
Study Areas

Library Building

eReserves (mostly born digital)
Self-service "eReserves" &
Other high-Use Items
Reference Materials
Actively Used Stacks
Actively Used Special Collections
Study/Collaborative Areas

Offsite Storage Facility

Offsite Storage

Benefits:

Dramatically Increased Digital Content

Virtually all content, copyrighted and free, is accessible digitally, instantly, while inside the library via HotLinks. Outside the library, students and researchers can easily purchase the content they found using hotlinks, thus increasing publisher revenue by pushing the cost to the patrons who want access outside the library and will buy only what they want. The result: the library spends less and provides Substantially more value, patrons with a budget, purchase what they choose to, while patrons without a budget have free access while in the library (the fundamental reason libraries exist), and publishers support the new model because HotLinks promotes more sales.

eReserves → Self-serve

A large percentage of eReserves can be switched to self-service by placing a KIC digitization kiosk next to reserves bookcases. The same can be done for high-use items, including reference materials, allowing for unlimited copies of excerpts of no more than 10% of each volume to be scanned during each user visit, in compliance with copyright law. Self-service reserves are also a solid benefit.

substantially Reduced Print Collections Areas

Books that are rarely accessed are moved to storage. The remaining actively accessed books are placed near high speed self-service digitization kiosks allowing for unlimited digital copies with no digital rights costs.

Dramatically Increased Study/Collaborate Space

Much more study/collaborate & research space is needed to support the substantial increase in value the library provides to its patrons while they are in the library.

KAT Stacks View

Whether in the stacks, in a high-use self-serve digitization area or in storage, KAT Stacks makes it easy to find items. KAT Stacks Provides a visual ‘virtual reality’ browsing experience with the option to browse all books in one complete collection, including special collections, offsite storage and high use bookshelves in self-service digitization areas.

Traditional Academic Library
Digital Age Academic Library

It can be said that the digital age began in the 1980s. However, it wasn’t until the Web began providing good answers to myriad questions, easily and virtually instantly that the perceived value of library print collections began to decline. Today, the value locked in academic library print collections can be unleashed with HotLinks, the Digital Stacks Project and the many millions of already digitized scholarly items.

Library Building

Reference Material
The Stacks
Special Collections

Library Building

Self-service "eReserves" &
Other high-Use Items
Reference Materials
Actively Used Stacks
Actively Used Special Collections

Offsite Storage Facility

Offsite Storage

Benefits:

Dramatically Increased Digital Content

Virtually all content, copyrighted and free, is accessible digitally, instantly, while inside the library via HotLinks. Outside the library, students and researchers can easily purchase the content they found using hotlinks, thus increasing publisher revenue by pushing the cost to the patrons who want access outside the library and will buy only what they want. The result: the library spends less and provides Substantially more value, patrons with a budget, purchase what they choose to, while patrons without a budget have free access while in the library (the fundamental reason libraries exist), and publishers support the new model because HotLinks promotes more sales.

eReserves → Self-serve

A large percentage of eReserves can be switched to self-service by placing a KIC digitization kiosk next to reserves bookcases. The same can be done for high-use items, including reference materials, allowing for unlimited copies of excerpts of no more than 10% of each volume to be scanned during each user visit, in compliance with copyright law. Self-service reserves are also a solid benefit.

substantially Reduced Print Collections Areas

Books that are rarely accessed are moved to storage. The remaining actively accessed books are placed near high speed self-service digitization kiosks allowing for unlimited digital copies with no digital rights costs.

Dramatically Increased Study/Collaborate Space

Much more study/collaborate & research space is needed to support the substantial increase in value the library provides to its patrons while they are in the library.

KAT Stacks View

Whether in the stacks, in a high-use self-serve digitization area or in storage, KAT Stacks makes it easy to find items. KAT Stacks Provides a visual ‘virtual reality’ browsing experience with the option to browse all books in one complete collection, including special collections, offsite storage and high use bookshelves in self-service digitization areas.

Traditional Academic Library
Digital Age Academic Library

It can be said that the digital age began in the 1980s. However, it wasn’t until the Web began providing good answers to myriad questions, easily and virtually instantly that the perceived value of library print collections began to decline. Today, the value locked in academic library print collections can be unleashed with HotLinks, the Digital Stacks Project and the many millions of already digitized scholarly items.

Library Building

eReserves
The Stacks
Special Collections

Library Building

eReserves (mostly born digital)
Self-service "eReserves" &
Other high-Use Items

Benefits:

Dramatically Increased Digital Content

Virtually all content, copyrighted and free, is accessible digitally, instantly, while inside the library via HotLinks. Outside the library, students and researchers can easily purchase the content they found using hotlinks, thus increasing publisher revenue by pushing the cost to the patrons who want access outside the library and will buy only what they want. The result: the library spends less and provides Substantially more value, patrons with a budget, purchase what they choose to, while patrons without a budget have free access while in the library (the fundamental reason libraries exist), and publishers support the new model because HotLinks promotes more sales.

eReserves → Self-serve

A large percentage of eReserves can be switched to self-service by placing a KIC digitization kiosk next to reserves bookcases. The same can be done for high-use items, including reference materials, allowing for unlimited copies of excerpts of no more than 10% of each volume to be scanned during each user visit, in compliance with copyright law. Self-service reserves are also a solid benefit.

substantially Reduced Print Collections Areas

Books that are rarely accessed are moved to storage. The remaining actively accessed books are placed near high speed self-service digitization kiosks allowing for unlimited digital copies with no digital rights costs.

Dramatically Increased Study/Collaborate Space

Much more study/collaborate & research space is needed to support the substantial increase in value the library provides to its patrons while they are in the library.

KAT Stacks View

Whether in the stacks, in a high-use self-serve digitization area or in storage, KAT Stacks makes it easy to find items. KAT Stacks Provides a visual ‘virtual reality’ browsing experience with the option to browse all books in one complete collection, including special collections, offsite storage and high use bookshelves in self-service digitization areas.

If you would like to learn more and perhaps discuss how you might be able to make this plan a reality, please send an email to HotLinks@DLSG.com requesting a discussion with a HotLinks expert and/or a remote demonstration of HotLinks Research Tool and HotLinks Study Tool. If you are a library director and wish to speak with Ted Webb, CEO of Image Access and DLSG, please indicate this in your email.

The Digital Stacks Project and HathiTrust

Questions illustrating differences between Digital Stacks Project and HathiTrust Digital Stacks Project HathiTrust Digital Library
What is the main purpose of the project/library? Research & Study Digital preservation
What is the required or target image quality? Clear, clean content Museum quality
Can digital images created for either ‘system’ be used for the other? Yes Yes, depending on quality
Where do the digital images reside? Inside each library In the cloud
Does the project/library increase the value of member libraries to their patrons? Yes, substantially ?
How many libraries already have compatible high-speed digitization systems? 960+ (1) 100+ (2)
Is content available anywhere in the world? NO YES
Is content available only when inside the library? YES NO
Can all content be viewed, including copyrighted content? YES NO
Can many pages (digital and/or print) be submitted as ‘match’ criteria? YES NO
Can the 100 most relevant pages from [potentially] billions be accessed instantly? YES NO
Does one ‘system’ eliminate the value of the other NO NO

(1) 960 academic libraries have DLSG digitization systems, all of which can be configured to digitize spines, covers & whole books with structural metadata.

(2) Over 100 HathiTrust members have DLSG digitization systems, 44 of them have Opus Digital Preservation software with Bookeye scanners.

To understand the synergies between HathiTrust and the Digital Stacks Project, one must first understand the costs and values each.

Why Museum Quality Digitization is Important

Cost. Digital Content lasts forever – once converted to 1s and 0s, there is no slow degradation over time. Even copies of copies of copies do not degrade at all. If it costs $100, even $200 to create a near perfect digital reproduction of a book, that cost can be spread over a hundred years, even a thousand years or more.

Value. Many, if not most of the books in special collections of libraries have a historic value, and just as museums must minimize the aging effects of time on their artifacts, special collections curators are compelled to create superior digital reproductions of their special collections books. Of all the reasons for preserving the appearance of historic books, perhaps the most important is that it nurtures appreciation for the pre-digital age history and development of all fields of study.

  • ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ (George Santayana-1905)
  • ‘Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.’ (Winston Churchill-1948)
  • ‘Societies that fail to appreciate the importance of history are condemned to repeat it.’ (DLSG for Digital Archivists-2020)

Why Digitizing for Content is important

Cost. Thousands KICs in a thousand academic libraries can easily be equipped with KICs new capabilities to digitize books covers, spines, content and structural metadata in 30 minutes, and during COVID-19 distance learning time, there may be no additional staff costs. Digitizing up to 16 books per day per worker at a thousand libraries requires special project coordination software - KAT Stacks shows each digitization worker [nearly] exact images of each bookshelf in his/her library, with markers/icons on each book spine that must be digitized. In addition to digitizing books for content, the extremely low cost makes it compelling to digitize library special collections volumes fast at 300dpi using KICs and post them as ‘place-holders’ to be replaced later with [nearly] perfect reproductions digitized more slowly and carefully at 600dpi using Opus and Bookeye scanners.

Value. While the Digital Stacks Project can concurrently serve HathiTrust and other content storage and management services and systems, the main value of the Digital Stacks Project is to take full advantage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (©-Law), specifically section 108. ©-Law section 108 allows researchers students and other patrons unfettered access to 100% of content in copyrighted books while the patrons are physically inside the library. Unlike google Scholar, HathiTrust and other Web-based systems, only HotLinks Research Tool takes full advantage of ©-Law section 108. In addition, HotLinks Research Tool utilizes the thousands of high-speed KIC digitization systems at a thousand academic libraries (including 90% of current HathiTrust member libraries) to input one to 100+ full pages of print and digital research or study materials. HotLinks fully analyzes and characterizes each page input and simultaneously matches all pages of input materials with copyrighted content that is in the library. HotLinks provides the most relevant, highly correlated page of each of the 100+ most highly correlated monographs and can match with billions of pages of digitized monograph content in a second. Access to each subsequent page is a simple swipe of a touchscreen or mouse click.

The Digital Stacks Project – Common Questions

  1. KIC-scanned books become valuable placeholders for preservation-quality, and some may be deemed acceptable as preservation quality – most KICs have Bookeye scanners. Also, the 44 HathiTrust members that are already using DLSG’s Opus with Bookeye will soon be able to add the high-speed scanning option to Opus.
  2. Adding 1,000 new members would bring HathiTrust membership dues down by almost enough to cover the cost of upgrading KICs and for KAT Stacks and for DSE Content Servers ( $30,500 = ( $4,999 * 2 +$10,000 ) / 5 + $4,999 * 2 * 15% + $5,000 + $0.02 * 1,000,000). The best chance of making this happen is for DLSG, the maker of the thousands of digitization systems on a thousand college and university campuses, to partner with the current HathiTrust members, 100 of which already are DLSG customers. Getting HathiTrust membership plus the game-changing combination of the HotLinks Research Tool, KAT Stacks and DSE Content Servers may be the best value libraries have seen in decades, if ever, and getting maximum value for your dollars is especially important today.

Green Grass is a valuable tool. While helping to recover library floor space for other uses, it ensures that frequently accessed books remain in the library stacks so that students, researchers and faculty can conveniently create virtually unlimited numbers digital copies of each book, an excerpt at a time, without paying anything for digital rights. However, Green Glass was developed before three new game-changing technologies: HotLinks Research Tool, DSE Content Servers & KAT. HotLinks Research Tool and DSE Content Servers substantially increase the value of the library for researchers, while KAT Stacks virtual reality browsing increases appreciation of print collections, especially when professors are able to present a QR code to their classes that instantly directs each of their students’ smart phone to sections in the stacks that are pertinent for the current study materials.

1) google Scholar can be accessed anywhere in the world and therefore is limited to showing only 10% of copyrighted information, while HotLinks operates inside the library serving up digital content that is held by the library (in DSE Content Servers) and, by complying with ©-Law (specifically section 108), it is not limited; 2) google Scholar searches billions of pages while HotLinks searches and matches. Both are lightening fast. However, google Scholar’s user input is search words that must be keyed in, while HotLinks’ user input is search words PLUS one to 100+ whole pages of unpublished and published research which Hotlinks uses to identify the 100 most highly relevant content.

All of this amazing transformative technology should be less than 1% of your annual budgets, and if you analyze carefully, you will likely find that it has greater value per dollar spent than many of your current budget line items. There are at least five ways to secure the funding: 1) explain the very high value and get the 1% increase in your budget from above; 2) push your most expensive, highest profit vendors for a Coronavirus discount – a small discount should be enough; 3) reallocate from existing budget line items – it should be an extremely small percentage of your budget; and 4) there’s always the possibility of getting a grant.

For institutions with many Masters and PhD programs, the HotLinks Research Tool is of great value, and it is arguable that students at 4 year and even 2 year institutions should have access to such a tool and the unabridged collections of nearly all academic libraries, the greatest value to 2 and 4 year institutions is for all students to have instant access to the most relevant alternate treatments of their current study topics.

As a small institution, you wouldn’t need to be part of the Digital Stacks Project or the HathiTrust project, etc. You would only need a single DSE Content Server, and you would pay ILL fees that cost as little as $0.0125. That’s it.

HotLinks and Copyright Law

DSE Content Servers work with MyDocs and the library’s WiFi hotspots to create a ‘digital fence’ that allows access only while in the library, and ensure compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, specifically the following sections (pertinent content highlighted and [annotated]):

logo

108. Limitations on exclusive rights: Reproduction by libraries and archives

(a) Except as otherwise provided in this title and notwithstanding the provisions of section 106 [ONE COPY FOR DIRECT DISTRIBUTION FOR FREE WITH COPYRIGHT NOTICE:] it is not an infringement of copyright for a library or archives, or any of its employees acting within the scope of their employment, to reproduce no more than one copy or phonorecord of a work, except as provided in subsections (b) and (c), or to distribute such copy or phonorecord, under the conditions specified by this section, if—

(1) the reproduction or distribution is made without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage;

(2) the collections of the library or archives are (i) open to the public, or (ii) available not only to researchers affiliated with the library or archives or with the institution of which it is a part, but also to other persons doing research in a specialized field; and

(3) the reproduction or distribution of the work includes a notice of copyright that appears on the copy or phonorecord that is reproduced under the provisions of this section, or includes a legend stating that the work may be protected by copyright if no such notice can be found on the copy or phonorecord that is reproduced under the provisions of this section.
(b) [THREE COPIES FOR DEPOSIT FOR RESEARCH USE IN ANOTHER LIBRARY NOW OR SOME TIME IN THE FUTURE:] The rights of reproduction and distribution under this section apply to three copies or phonorecords an unpublished work duplicated solely for purposes of preservation and security or for deposit for research use in another library or archives of the type described by clause (2) of subsection (a), if—

(1) the copy or phonorecord reproduced is currently in the collections of the library or archives; and

(2) any such copy or phonorecord that is reproduced in digital format is not otherwise distributed in that format and is not made available to the public in that format outside the premises of the library or archives.