Williams had no time to waste. The son of a plumber, he had to earn a living. To cover just the social studies and the humanities, he figured he needed to buy the rights to 50,000 books and to digitize them. Questia has signed 200 publishers to date and offers 40,000 books and 4,000 journal articles. The digitization process involved shipping the books including tomes by George Washington from 1750 to the Philippines, where 6,000 workers ripped them up for scanning.
Many students are older 'multitaskers,' combining school, work and family life.
They can't be in the stacks at midnight. It's totally accessible to everyone on the Internet. And no membership, no up-front costs,' he says.