SD Forum Series Brings in Brewster Kahle

New York Times, Wired, Washington Post, CBS MarketWatch and others cover Google's plans to digitize the holdings of Stanford, Michigan and other major research libraries.

Brewster Kahle, who was quoted in one of the articles, plans to speak at the SD Forum at Stanford tonight.

Should be an interesting talk. It starts at 6 pm at the PARC Auditorium.

Why go and what will they talk about?
Advances in computing and communications mean that we can cost-effectively store every book, sound recording, movie, software package, and public web page ever created, and provide access to these collections via the Internet to students and adults all over the world. By mostly using existing institutions and funding sources, we can build this as well as compensate authors within what is the current worldwide library budget. The talk offers an update on the current state of progress towards that ideal, which would allow us to bequeath an accessible record of our cultural heritage to our descendants.

SD Forum brings people in who have made major contributions to how software is created, or who have helped us to understand the role of software in the larger society.

Craig Newmark from Craig's List speaks on January 20 and creator of Python Guido van Rossum speaks on the 17th of February.