Re: idea for digital libraries

[Mike Schwartz <schwartz@latour.cs.colorado.edu>]

Interesting idea.  A few thoughts:
        - the RFP talked about digitizing a significant new corpora.  What
          would we do here?  I don't think FTP will cut it.  I think it has
          to have sex appeal, like your EDGAR database or a global
          schoolhouse or something
        - I'm not sure how setting this thing up will help create a global
          common space.  It sounds like maybe you want to set up a
          professionaly administered and programmed repository for
          e-publication?
        - it seems to me the primary appeal of what you suggest is
          something like a production Dartnet, i.e., a piece of
          infrastructure that provides value because it has dedicated
          function that doesn't get thrashed by all the random activity of
          the rest of the Internet (and doesn't itself thrash the
          Internet).  If that's the case, the reviewers might kill it by
          saying in effect, "let the commercial guys build fast links,
          that's what they plan to do anyway".  A different angle might be
          to claim that this thing is a great boost to collaboration
          technologies (mbone is nearing its limits now), but that seems to
          apply to NSF's previous "collaboratory" vision more than to
          digital libraries