…and the public's response.
The statement … that in two decades most of the world's knowledge will be digitized and available is unrealistic.
While Google's inclusion of major library collections in its search engine is a small step toward digitizing the world's knowledge, a major portion of the small research libraries in the United States [do] not even have online catalogs, let alone digitized collections.
The world outside of the United States is full of libraries and collections where a computer is considered a luxury item….
We can truly say the world's knowledge is being made accessible only when the small have-not library collections are digitized around the world, and not just the Harvards, the Stanfords and the Michigans.
- NYT Letter to the editor (12/16/2004)