By Omar Rafik El-Sabrout & Mek
Earlier this week, Open Library’s Mek Karpeles, Internet Archive Summer of Code fellow Tabish Shaikh, and members of the community announced the launch of a new Book Sponsorship program which, boingboing.net explains, “lets you direct a cash donation to pay for the purchase and scanning of any books. In return, you are first in line to check that book out when it is available, and then anyone who holds an Open Library library card can check it out.”
So far, the program has been met by enthusiasm by readers and authors who are eager to play a role in shaping the world’s largest online digital library.
One generous reader, Tom in Yokohama, Japan, explains why he choose to sponsor a book:
“I saw the blog post about sponsoring books and I thought it was a wonderful idea. The book I sponsored is one I enjoyed as a child. I’m not likely to read it again, but I am happy to make it available to others who might want to read it. (Several other books in the same series are checked out, so there must be interest!)”
Author, VM (Vicky) Brasseur, went so far as to make sure we received a signed copy of her work with a heartwarming message to her readers.
Does your local public library have a copy of my book yet?
— VM (Vicky) Brasseur (@vmbrasseur) October 23, 2019
No?
That’s OK, because your local internet library does.
Get your @openlibrary account today then check out this and millions of other great books! 😍 https://t.co/Uo7mo8vjNd
Other authors were quick to join on board, going so far as to offer sponsoring their own works for posterity.
The news was even touted by one of our favorite popular science fiction authors, Cory Doctorow:
Calculating the True Value of A Library that is Free
From an article posted by Omar Rafik El-Sabrout at http://blog.archive.org/2019/10/22/calculating-the-true-value-of-a-library-that-is-free/
We live in the era of Venmo and CashApp, when after a nice meal with friends, you no longer have to argue over who will pick up the bill. On the surface, this is an extremely promising way to keep people from accidentally going into debt with each other. But it also reinforces interactions that are extremely transactional. The old idea of “I’ll get you back next time” is part of the give and take that members of a close community engage in. In our transactional present, people don’t have to rely on the idea of trust–trusting the butcher at the farmer’s market won’t price gouge me, trusting my friend will pay me back. People aren’t learning that you can vote by caring, by putting your money behind something that matters to you. At a moment when “you get what you pay for” is the capitalist norm, enter the Internet Archive, which today is asking you to make an investment in community-wide sharing.
A new program at OpenLibrary.org encourages you to “put your money behind something that matters to you:” sponsoring a book so everyone can read and borrow it online for free.
The Internet Archive, which runs the Open Library project, is working to create a vast network of online book lending in order to make all books accessible to all people. Open Library cares about the input of its readers. As Open librarian and Internet Archive Software Engineer Mek Karpeles describes, “Open Library’s theory is that readers deserve a say in what’s on their bookshelves,” which is why he and his team have created a new Book Sponsorship feature.
Founded on the idea that a library ought to have books that “reflect [a] community’s needs and values,” Book Sponsorship allows any of the more than two and a half-million users of Open Library to #saveabook. This is a natural follow-up to the long standing “Want to Read” functionality whereby a reader can indicate a book is missing from the Archive that they wish to read.
With our new book sponsorship program, readers are given the option to put money towards directly sponsoring the acquisition of a particular book, after which the Internet Archive will digitize, store, and make the ebook available for lending–for free. Among other possibilities, this would allow people to combat the lack of representation of young black protagonists that Marley Dias, creator of the #1000BlackGirlBooks, found at her school and local library. We currently feature almost 400 of the #1000BlackGirlBooks on archive.org and with your support, we can buy and digitize all of them.
When people are given the opportunity to be generous in an obligation-free way, we find that typically brings out their desire to do good.
By giving people a say and making them feel represented, they become more invested. The care that comes from the investment of individuals is what eventually creates a community, and our hope is that the Open Library community will use this feature to help disenfranchised patrons gain access to materials that would enrich their education. When people are given the opportunity to be generous in an obligation-free way, we find that typically brings out their desire to do good. It’s relatively easy to put a price on a book, to calculate printing costs and publishing costs, but what’s harder to determine is the value of giving a gift. If you’re interested in sponsoring a book, either for yourself or for someone else, just click on a Sponsor an eBook button or visit https://openlibrary.org/sponsorship to learn more.
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