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Title: Boston Public Library Aims To Increase Access To a Vast Historic
Archive Using AI

Link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/08/12/2050...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Boston Public Library, one of
the oldest and largest public library systems in the country, is launching a
project this summer with OpenAI and Harvard Law School to make its trove of
historically significant government documents more accessible to the public.
The documents date back to the early 1800s and include oral histories,
congressional reports and surveys of different industries and communities.
"It really is an incredible repository of primary source materials covering
the whole history of the United States as it has been expressed through
government publications," said Jessica Chapel, the Boston Public Library's
chief of digital and online services. Currently, members of the public who
want to access these documents must show up in person. The project will
enhance the metadata of each document and will enable users to search and
cross-reference entire texts from anywhere in the world. Chapel said Boston
Public Library plans to digitize 5,000 documents by the end of the year, and
if all goes well, grow the project from there. Because of this historic
collection's massive size and fragility, getting to this goal is a daunting
process. Every item has to be run through a scanner by hand. It takes about
an hour to do 300-400 pages. Harvard University said it could help.
Researchers at the Harvard Law School Library's Institutional Data Initiative
are working with libraries, museums and archives on a number of fronts,
including training new AI models to help libraries enhance the searchability
of their collections. AI companies help fund these efforts, and in return get
to train their large language models on high-quality materials that are out
of copyright and therefore less likely to lead to lawsuits. "Having
information institutions like libraries involved in building a sustainable
data ecosystem for AI is critical, because it not just improves the amount of
data we have available, it improves the quality of the data and our
understanding of what's in it," said Burton Davis, vice president of
Microsoft's intellectual property group. [...] OpenAI is helping Boston
Public Library cover such costs as scanning and project management. The tech
company does not have exclusive rights to the digitized data.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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