Duelling digitization

Both the Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required) and Inside Higher Ed are reporting this morning that the two companies working with Emory University to digitize its library plan to take that model to many other colleges and universities — as well as other large library collections. The two companies are Kirtas Technologies, which works on digitizing books and other materials, and BookSurge, a unit of Amazon.com that focuses on print on demand. Initial clients — beyond Emory — include the University of Maine, the Toronto Public Library and the Cincinnati Public Library. Unlike the Google and Microsoft digitization projects, this project will not limit people to reading the books online. Thanks to print-on-demand technology, readers will be able to buy hard copies of out-of-print books and have them shipped to their homes.