Brewster Kahle, the guy behind the internet archive, listed with a byline on Yahoo’s search blog of Founder of the Digital Librarian Internet Archive has announced the Open Content Alliance, backed by Yahoo:

To be clear, the public domain works in the Open Content Alliance can be “borrowed” in bulk for build navigation services, do research on, and the like. Bits and pieces of the public domain collections can be re-used and re-interpreted. If someone wants to print and binding a book and sell it on Amazon.com– go nuts, if they want to make it into an audio book and post it on the web– go for it (we will even supply the hosting for this), basically let’s have a blast building on the classics of humankind.

On the Open Content Alliance’s site they have a call for participation which leads through some mission statements and ultimately ends up at an “email us if you are interested.” They couldn’t setup a signup online? Maybe that’s what part of this is, the part that says: ” Contributors will donate collections, services, facilities, tools and/or funding to the OCA.” Most of my questions were answered as I did more research and reading.

They are going to use the open source Creative Commons licensing structure for the actual content. Yahoo has been a big supporter of searching this type of content, even offering up one of their specialized search engines and API for making it easier to find this type of content. Also, adding the RSS 2.0 Module for adding multiple enclosures to a single entry.

ResearchBuzz answered many questions about when and where:

There WILL be a separate page on Yahoo to search the subset of content generated by the OCA. It’s too early to tell how much you’ll be able to break it down, whether you’ll be able to create sets of books, etc. It depends on how much is indexed and what kind of material is indexed. There is no goal in that regard. “We don’t have a specific number goal; we’re focused on quality,” said Mandelbrot. “Our general goal is to make this the richest library of cultural materials available online.”

This sounds very promising!

InsideGoogle adds that contributers to OCA in addition to Yahoo are: ” Adobe, HP, O’Reilly Media (a commercial publisher who will be making some of their books available), and various international archives.”

Nick from Threadwatch likes the idea:

It’s a PR coup. With the GOOG project under increasing legal pressure and suspicion, the OCA come in with a set of principles for participation that even the most cynical would find it hard to find fault with.

It’s fluffy, it’s opt-in and it’s non-propriatory for the most part. It’s a group of participating companies, not one organization - sheesh, could you have engineered a more “feel good” solution?

Nick’s point is shared by others that in light of Google’s legal struggles with scanning print books for the alleged good of making information available to all. By this Open Alliance move, Yahoo actually jumps ahead and seeks to score a slam dunk in their face.

Who benefits if this project turns out what it promises? The rest of us mankind.

As ResearchBuzz also wisely noted, that right now this is just an announcement with zero content. Announcements like this are exciting but the proof will be in the actual content.

Search engine battling aside, this really is a step in the right direction. I look forward eagerly to seeing where this one leads the rest of the world.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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