Abstract:
This paper focuses on collection development and implementation issues and challenges
of the Million Book Project (MBP), an international digital library project. The project's
objective is to create a free-to-read, universally accessible million-book digital resource.
The creation of this digital storehouse will also provide a test bed for research and
investigation on data mining, automatic summarization, machine translation, and
development and transformation of digital library tools. Initially the project had fifteen
partners in China, India, and the United States. As the project has evolved, additional
project participants have joined the effort. The collaboration of both old and new partners
is essential to the creation a large-scale, multi-national digital library. Librarians hailing
from two of the partner countries, India and the United States, will focus on collection
development and content selection among partners physically separate but virtually
connected.
