While Google still struggles with its digitization project, another service has doubled its collection of online texts for the visually impaired in its first week of operation.

The Internet Archive has been digitizing books since 2005, but it introduced a new service Thursday that makes books accessible in a special format for the blind, dyslexic or otherwise visually impaired.

“Every person deserves the opportunity to enhance their lives through access to the books that teach, entertain and inspire,” said Brewster Kahle, the founder and Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive, in a press release. “Bringing access to huge libraries of books to the blind and print disabled is truly one of benefits of the digital revolution.”

The service now offers over 1 million texts for the visually impaired, which are part of a larger collection of 2 million digitized books. The books available for the visually impaired are scanned from hard copy and digitized using DAISY — a format that makes it easier for them to read. The books are presented in electronic format just as they would be seen holding a hard copy in hand: there are two pages side-by-side, and all the pages and information are included, from illustrations to title pages.

Older texts are available for free, but newer texts must be accessed through a special pass code given to qualified users.

Potential applications

Besides the great benefit to the visually impaired, the service can have an impact for the general population, as well.

Because The Internet Archive — both its general database and its collection for the visually impaired (whose open content can be accessed by anyone) — has a large number of classic literary and historical texts, the site could easily be accessed by college students who either prefer the medium or who would simply like to reduce whatever costs possible in overall education expenses. The site could also be beneficial to professors to use in class or to select available texts as a way to ease some financial burdens for students. At the very least, it’s one less book to lug across campus.

There are some issues with access, however. Not all students will have access to a computer or to Internet service in order to access the site.

The scope of potential is also limited in that the service can not easily be applied to textbooks, which typically have more complex formatting such as tables, charts and other graphics. But digitizing textbooks elicits a much greater debate.

Institutional changes

The digitization of books can have a sweeping impact on libraries at colleges across the country if progress continues to move forward and predictions about the eventually of virtual learning are realized.

Many libraries are working on long-term projects to digitize their collections — either in whole or in part — including the University of Michigan, Princeton University and the University of Texas at Austin. Many universities involved in such projects, including those listed here, have partnered with Google in its efforts.

Carnegie Mellon University has also begun its own Million Book Project.

Microsoft has its own book digitization project, and numerous other initiatives are being developed.

The progress made by the Internet Archive was announced in the same week that Southern Methodist University announced that it would suspend its University Press. Though the two do not have a direct correlation — one being about the business of producing books and the other about the business of books already published — it does provide an interesting entry way into a larger conversation about the economics of virtual books, and even the direct-to-virtual publication of books as a mainstream practice — not just the realm of the self-published.

Virtual books could provide a solution for publishers and libraries alike to save their bottom line.