Open Library : The Library Must Be on the Internet

“What if there was a library which held every book? Not every book on sale, or every important book, or even every book in English, but simply every book—a key part of our planet’s cultural legacy.”

Open Library is still testing and in demo mode, but seems to be a really promising form of compromise between the digital age’s takeover of traditional media forms and our culture’s long and dense history with paper. The site offers many ways to browse books, authors and cover art, as well as providing full-text of out of copyright books from the Library of Congress.

The code is open source, the mailing lists are open, and they need our help. Go check it out!