Google Is Adding Major Libraries to Its Database By JOHN MARKOFF and EDWARD WYATT Published: December 14, 2004
"Google, the operator of the world's most popular Internet search service, plans to announce an agreement today with some of the nation's leading research libraries and Oxford University to begin converting their holdings into digital files that would be freely searchable over the Web.
...collaboration of Google and research institutions that also include Harvard, the University of Michigan, Stanford and the New York Public Library...
Google - newly wealthy from its stock offering last summer - has agreed to underwrite the projects being announced today while also adding its own technical abilities to the task of scanning and digitizing tens of thousands of pages a day at each library..."
On publishers and libraries...
"From the earliest days of the printing press, book publishers were wary of the development of libraries at all. In many instances, they opposed the idea of a central facility offering free access to books that people would otherwise be compelled to buy.
But as libraries developed and publishers became aware that they could be among their best customers, that opposition faded. Now publishers aggressively court librarians with advance copies of books, seeking positive reviews of books in library journals and otherwise trying to influence the opinion of the people who influence the reading habits of millions..."
(Same source)
Would be interesting to see what technology they use, and how the standards differ or compare with those practised in other large-scale digitization projects, such as JSTOR, and also even at the University of Michigan itself we saw a small unit with high-tech equipment.
Digitization itself is thankless work - they should automate it as much as possible. Those dark rooms... though I guess if they are not such rare books it would be ok to have some light. Though only books out of copyright will be slated for the project.
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