I would not minimize the digital divide, which separates the computerized world from the rest, nor would I underestimate the importance of traditional books.
Robert DarntonIn 2002, Google began an ambitious project to digitize every book in the world. It was intended as a search project: type in a query, and Google would show you snippets. They asked university libraries for books, which they would scan for free. At Harvard we didn't permit them to take works under copyright, but other libraries gave them everything.
Robert DarntonIt's important to make clear to all the schools at Harvard the central role of the library.
Robert DarntonThe peasant of early modern France inhabited a world of step-mothers and orphans, of inexorable, unending toil, and of brutal emotions, both raw and repressed.The human condition has changed so much since then that we can hardly imagine the way it appeared to people whose lives really were nasty, brutish, and short. This is why we need to reread Mother Goose.
Robert Darnton