Consultant: Book Digitization Will Go On Despite Microsoft’s Exit From the Field

Many academic librarians are disheartened by Microsoft’s recent decision to end its book scanning and digitizing project. (Read more in an article in today’s Chronicle) But Joseph J. Esposito, a business consultant whose clientele includes libraries, publishers, and software companies, said in an interview with The Chronicle this week that “nobody should lose sleep over this.”

“Digitization is going on everywhere,” he says. He notes that publishers are doing more to digitize their materials and that a new category of companies has emerged called “digital asset distributors” that disseminate content via the Web. LibreDigital and Ingram Digital Group are examples of such businesses.

Mr. Esposito also says that academic libraries can afford to take their time in digitizing their works. “As one digitizes more and more, one begins to digitize things that have a smaller amount of anticipated usage,” he says. “It doesn’t all have to be done tomorrow. And we have other priorities for investments than simply digitizing things.” —Andrea L. Foster