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Every Norwegian Book Will Soon Be Online To Read For Free

Dylan LoveDec 11, 2013, 21:58 IST

Flickr via alexerde

Norway is digitizing all of its books to make them searchable and freely available for anyone online, reports The Verge.

Material that's still under copyright (*cough* Jo Nesbo *cough*) can only be viewed by those accessing the collection from a Norwegian IP address, but that still leaves plenty of reading material for the rest of us - Norway's libraries have materials dating back to the Middle Ages.

The website for the National Library of Norway goes into all kinds of detail on the digitization process, and given the volume of material needing to be scanned, this project could take until 2036 to complete!

We think the rest of the world would do well to follow Norway's lead to preserve its culture and knowledge in a far more permanent way than ink on paper.