The public libraries of the United Kingdom are on a treasure hunt.
The goal:
To find the coolest item in their collection that has yet to be digitized and enter it into a contest being run by the British Library.
The contest is sponsored by the British Library with financial support coming from Microsoft.
If a particular library doesn’t feel they have anything worthy they can they include “local partners such as museums, archives, churches or stately homes” to come up with their submission.
Finalists will be “invited to a high-profile awards ceremony at the British Library.”
There will be one winner for each part of the Kingdom; England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The winning items will be “digitized, converted into Turning the Pages 2.0 format and hosted online by the British Library for three years.”
This is a pretty clever marketing strategy for both Microsoft and the British Library as it provides maximum exposure while providing an opportunity to feature their recently unveiled Turning the Pages 2.0 technology.
They are guaranteed A-list material to show off the technology with minimum expense.
Don’t get me wrong. I can’t wait to see the digitized versions of the winning books but the real contest should be in trying to find a way for these public institutions to digitize and make available to the public a much greater portion of their holdings.
British Library announcement
Article in the Belfast Telegraph on the contest
Previous Book Patrol post on the Turning the Pages 2.0 technology