About the Program
Robert Darnton, director of the Harvard University Library, recounts the creation of the bound book or codex and present his thoughts on its future. Mr. Darnton focuses on the digitization of books and specifically the efforts of the Google Book Search project. Mr. Darnton opines on the benefits of digitization, the democratization of little seen or known books and their availability to people regardless of location and its detractions, his belief that the Google project presents a monopoly on digital texts and argues that a public rather than a private entity should maintain a library of digital books. Robert Darnton presents his views on publishing at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts.