[Please excuse the cross-postings. --ELM] The Hesburgh Libraries of the University of Notre Dame is sponsoring a mini-symposium on the topic of mass digitization one week from today, Thursday, May 21 from 1 - 4:30. You are invited. The purpose of the symposium it to discuss, learn, and explore the possibilities and ramifications of huge amounts of digitized texts in libraries. Our speakers include: * Maura Marx (Executive Director, Open Knowledge Commons) - Ms. Marx will speak about the history of mass digitization initiatives, the Google Books settlement, and why we need to work towards a viable alternative, and current "open" plans and programs. She will describe how the old notions of privacy and confidentiality are disappearing in the profit driven commercial environment, where revenues come from better targeting and personalization. All of this impacts not only how we work today, but how future generations will access knowledge. * Gary Charbonneau (Indiana University) - Mr. Charbonneau will speak on Google Books and its impact on mass digitization efforts within the academy. Gary is currently the Systems Librarian at IU, of which he serves as the Google Digitizing Project Manager at the Herman B. Wells Library. Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day, and its impact on mass digitization efforts have been extraordinary and in some ways, controversial. * Sian Meikle (University of Toronto) - Ms. Meikle will share many thought-provoking insights into the experiences with the Open Content Alliance (OCA) which is a collaborative effort of a group of cultural, technology, non-profit, and governmental organizations from around the world that helps build a permanent archive of multilingual digitized texts and multimedia materials. Everybody is welcome. There is no registration fee or form. For more details, please see the website: http://www.library.nd.edu/symposium/ -- Eric Lease Morgan Head, Digital Access and Information Architecture Department Hesburgh Libraries, University of Notre Dame (574) 631-8604