The Artful Accidents of Google Books
The passing of a political hero, growing crops on the moon and the color of 2014 in this week’s look at the web
As millions of pages are rapidly scanned into Google Books and made searchable to the public, interesting anomalies occur—the physical book’s history, such as tobacco stains or handwritten notes, end up being preserved online, along with glitches that occur during the scanning process, like the hand of the scanner operator covering a page. These “mistakes” have been collected in Tumblrs, used in new media art work, and also raise thought-provoking questions regarding the politics and class factors behind data entry.
COOL HUNTING always gets permission to use the images we publish; however, as an independent publication, we cannot afford to continue fighting unfair claims of copyright infringement, so the images have been removed from this post.
Via newyorker.com link opens in a new window
