The Open Library is a colossal undertaking to put every book on the planet within its catalog. Since no building would be large enough to house the collection, this library is on the web with access to everyone. And to remove all borders to free access, the code for Open Library is open source. Another big bonus - no more annoying shushers.

The Open Library concept is modeled after Wikipedia, a resource where users in any country can have access, are encouraged to curate the catalog, contribute to its content, and have free access to all its data. This library, once it is built, will be a very beautiful thing.

Open Library is partnering with the Internet Archive's book scanning project, so that you can read the full text of all the out-of-copyright books they've made available. It will link to places where each book could be bought, borrowed, or downloaded and provide reviews and references on the books themselves.

The library has accomplished a great deal in acquiring the Library of Congress' catalog, courting publishers to get more data, building a super capacity database to store the millions of entries and a new wiki.

For Open Library to get to the next level, it will need lots of volunteers to believe and build it up. The site is in demo now, but there's a guided tour which helps you visualize how it will all shake out.

[via Slashdot]