USA Today reports that the Alfred P. Sloan foundation has awarded the Library of Congress $2 million for a program that will digitize thousands of works, with a major focus on "brittle books." This project will supplement other Library of Congress efforts as well as projects undertaken by other entities such as Google and Microsoft.  Up to this point, other digitization projects have avoided materials that are considered to be in vulnerable condition.  The "Digitizing American Imprints" program aims to identify best practices for handling and scanning such materials, and scanning is set to begin within a few months...

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2007-02-01-digitizing-brittle-books_x.htm