Library of Congress Workshop on Etexts

Library of Congress Workshop on Etexts by the Library of Congress captures a pivotal 1992 convergence of librarians, technologists, and scholars grappling with how printed works would become electronic and widely accessible. This audiobook presents the proceedings from the June workshop, offering a snapshot of early digital library thinking and practical debates about content, capture, dissemination, and preservation. Listeners hear discussions on user needs and evaluation, demonstrations of pioneering projects such as the Perseus Project, Patrologia Latina, American Memory, and The Papers of George Washington, and sessions on distribution, networking, and the technical challenges of image and text capture. Experts debate scanning vs. microform, OCR versus rekeying, standards for accuracy, storage formats, conservation of bound volumes, and the emerging implications for long-term digital preservation. Copyright and legal considerations are examined alongside practical workflows, reflecting the historical moment when information science and digital technology began reshaping scholarship. Ideal for librarians, archivists, digital humanists, information scientists, and students of library and information science, this science-focused proceedings audiobook is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the origins and technical foundations of electronic texts and digital preservation.