Google has added the initial batch of scanned library books to a searchable index, the first fruits of the company's controversial partnership with five major research libraries.
The Library Project, part of the company's Google Print program, has been digitizing library books for nearly a year, in an arrangement with Harvard and Stanford Universities, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and the University of Oxford, in England, as well as the New York Public Library. But until now those scanned books had not been part of the Google index.
Adam M. Smith, a senior business-product manager at Google who is working on the book-scanning project, said in an interview on Wednesday that "thousands" of library books are now in the index, though he would not give an exact number. All of the books added to the index are in the public domain, he said....Mr. Smith also said that Google has resumed scanning copyrighted books. The company had temporarily stopped scanning copyrighted works in order to give publishers a chance to give Google lists of books that they did not want scanned. Mr. Smith added that some of the copyrighted books would begin to appear in the Google index "very shortly."
From now on, library books will be added to the index as they are scanned, according to Nathan Tyler, a spokesman for Google. "We're going to be constantly adding new books to the index as they become available," he said.
The full-text books now in Google include Civil War regimental histories from the University of Michigan, government documents from Stanford University's collection, works by Henry James from Harvard's libraries, and biographies from the New York Public Library's holdings.
The books can be found by searching Google Print.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/03/2005 09:43:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
