Google to Partner With Major Libraries on Digitizing Collections

From the press release: “…Google Inc. today announced that it is working with the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, and the University of Oxford as well as The New York Public Library to digitally scan books from their collections so that users worldwide can search them in Google…Today’s announcement is an expansion of the Google Print program, which assists publishers in making books and other offline information searchable online.”
Additional details about the non-exclusive digitization project, to be financed by Google, are that it will encompass scanning some 15 million titles at a cost of $10-15 per book, requiring at least 10 years for completion. WorldCat links for those titles not available in full-text will be provided. There are significant considerations associated with this effort, including preservation, copyright and e-commerce issues, so there no doubt will be more news in future.
Related Articles and Links

from the New York Times: Google Is Adding Major Libraries to Its Database

from AP: Google to Scan Books From Big Libraries

From Harvard University: Harvard and Google Announce Pilot Digitization Project, and FAQ: The University’s Pilot Project with Google [via John Battelle’s Searchblog]

From University of Michigan: Google/U-M project opens the way to universal access to information

From The Chronicle of Higher Education: Google Will Digitize and Search Millions of Books From 5 Leading Research Libraries

Oxford-Google digitisation agreement

NYPL Partners with Google to Make Books Available Online

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