Photos: Internet Archive's ambitious vision

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

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

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

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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.

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A worker turns the pages of a book.

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

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The original book from that scan.

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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.

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The scanned and digitized books can then easily be printed.

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

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

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

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