Google Brings Millions of Hard-to-Find Library Books to Your Fingertips

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Google Brings Millions of Hard-to-Find Library Books to Your Fingertips

 

 

Millions of hard-to-find books from five major libraries will soon be

a lot easier to access: Google has made plans to scan and digitize

them, making the books available on their widely used Internet search

engine.

 

Google's latest endeavor is a large step beyond previous attempts to

scan books so they can be read online (Google, Amazon.com and other

smaller sites have offered glimpses of books and libraries online

before). What makes this initiative so different is the sheer breadth

of material that Google plans to cover.

 

Five libraries will be involved in the project in various stages:

 

* New York public library: Allowing Google a small portion of

books no longer covered by copyright.

* Harvard University library: Is contributing a limited 40,000

volumes to guage how well the process works.

* Stanford University library: Will submit its entire collection

to Google's scanners.

* Michigan University library: Will also submit its entire collection.

* Oxford University library: Contributing all its books published

before 1901

 

To get an idea of just how large a project Google is taking on,

consider that Michigan's library alone contains 7 million volumes,

which is about 132 miles of books, while Harvard's library contains 15

million. The Michigan job is expected to take six years.

 

Although some in the field worry that this trend could signal the end

of libraries, others are excited at the prospect of putting valuable

information that was once limited in its use at the fingertips of all

Internet users. The project will also create a digital record for

material that was created before computers, thereby preserving it in a

way that could not have been done in the past.

 

Google users will only be able to view bibliographies and other brief

excerpts from the copyrighted books scanned from the libraries, while

works no longer covered by copyrights will be completely available to

the online public.

 

USA Today December 14, 2004

 

New York Times December 14, 2004