Photos: Internet Archive’s ambitious vision

The Internet Archive offices in San Francisco’s Presidio, a former military base that now houses mostly nonprofits.

Using an online database, an Internet Archive book processor verifies that the copyright on an O’Henry book has expired.

Internet Archive workers staff the book scanning machines at the University of California’s Northern Regional Library Facility in Richmond, Calif., near Berkeley.

A worker scanning books uses a foot pedal to lift and lower a V-shaped cradle and glass plate that hold the book pages down while two cameras shoot pictures.

A worker turns the pages of a book.

This image shows what appears on the screen in front of the person scanning books.

The original book from that scan.

Some old books arrive in sorry shape. The Scribe scanners were designed to avoid damaging the books. Other scanning methods require workers to cut bindings.

The scanned and digitized books can then easily be printed.

The scanned books are exact duplicates of the originals, even down to the library check-out slips and envelopes.

Kahle shows off an antenna from the free wireless Internet project SFLan.org.

Robert Miller, director of books at the Internet Archive, in front of the entrance to the book scanning offices at the University of California.