07 June 2007

US research universities boost Google's Library Project

Google has announced that its Library Project has received a massive boost, after the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) joined up.

The CIC is a national consortium of 12 US research universities and the search engine giant will work with the group to digitise select collections across all of its libraries - up to 10 million volumes.

Among the universities making up the CIC are the University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Indiana University, University of Iowa and University of Michigan.

Readers will be able to access the distinctive and unique collections held by the consortium, from global collections such as Northwestern's Africana collection to the University of Minnesota's Scandinavian and forestry collections.

A digital copy of the public domain materials will be provided for the CIC on behalf of Google and the consortium will use these files to create a first-ever "shared digital repository of these works held across the CIC libraries".

Students and faculty will in future have access to the shared online works which were previously kept in separate locations.

Librarians will be able to collectively archive materials over time, allowing researchers to make customised searches.

"This library digitisation agreement is one of the largest cooperative actions of its kind in higher education," said CIC chairman Lawrence Dumas, provost of Northwestern University.

"We have a collective ambition to share resources and work together to preserve the world's printed treasures."

The Google Books Library Search Project digitises books from major libraries across the globe, making them available on Google Book Search.

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