IP: U Delaware: the entire Library of Congress, or just 12 movies?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date:         Fri, 07 Sep 2001 10:48:30 EDT
> From: Rich Wiggins <wiggins () msu edu>
> Subject:      U Delaware: the entire Library of Congress, or just 12 movies?
> To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
>
> > > "We have problems with certain students downloading 19 gigabytes of stuff,"
> > > Susan J. Foster, the university's vice president for information
> > > technologies, says with some exasperation. "What is a student doing to
> > > download 19 gigabytes? What is that -- the entire Library of Congress? It
> > > makes us think that it's video."
>
> Obviously Dr. Foster was speaking metaphorically, but those
> Delaware freshmen transferred about 1/1000th of the Library
> of Congress -- or a dozen movies in digital form.
>
> Brewster Kahle (Internet Archive, Alexa) estimates that if every
> book in the Library of Congress were digitized, it would require
> about 20 terabytes of storage.  This is text-only, no images.
> So at 19 gigabytes the Delaware students have downloaded less
> than 1/1000th of the Library of Congress.
>
> On the other hand, a DVD holds about 5 gigabytes of storage.
> Assuming the students are sharing movies in compressed
> form, let's call it 1 gigabyte per digitized hour.  Thus
> the Delaware students have transferred about 12 movies.
>
> If you thought Napster could swamp a campus network, imagine
> what Moviester could do -- or is already doing.
>
> /rich
>
> PS --
>
> Many citizens assume that the Library of Congress has already
> been digitized.  It has not.  Only a tiny fraction of its holdings
> have been digitized.  There are no plans within LC to digitize
> all of its holdings, or even all of its book holdings, or even
> a substantial portion of its book holdings.
>
> http://netfact.com/present/rww-cil-digital-lc-mar2001.html



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