Hi there,

During my weekly look at U.S. newspapers on the web for any important  news
about libraries, I came across the news flash today 14th December 2004 that
the libraries of five of the world's most important academic institutions
are to be digitised by Google:

Scanned pages from books in the public domain will then be made available
for search and reading online.

The libraries that have teamed up with Google are Oxford University Library,
as well as the libraries at
Michigan, Harvard, and Stanford universities in the U.S.,and the  New York
Public Library.

Online pages from scanned books will not have adverts but will have links to
online store Amazon, Google said.

"The goal of the project is to unlock the wealth of information that is
offline and bring it online," said Susan Wojcicki, director of product
management at Google.

As an example of the time scale of the project, it will take six years to
digitise the full collection at Michigan University Library, which contains
seven million volumes.

Users will only have access to extracts and bibliographies of copyrighted
works.

The New York Public Llibrary is allowing Google to include a small portion
of books no longer covered by copyright.

Thousands of Oxford University Library rare books will be made available
online. Harvard University Library is limiting its participation to 40,000
books, while Oxford University Library wants Google to scan books originally
published in the 19th Century and held in the Bodleian Library.

A spokeswoman for Oxford University Library said the digitised books would
include novels, poetry, political tracts and art books.

"Important works that are out of print or only available in a few libraries
around the world will be made available to everyone," she said.

About one million books will be scanned by Google, less than 15% of the
total collection held in the Bodleian.

"We hope that Oxford's contribution to this project will be of scholarly
use, as well as general interest, to people around the world," said Reg
Carr, director of Oxford University Library Services.

"It's a significant opportunity to bring our material to the rest of the
world," said Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library.

"It could solve an old problem: If people can't get to us, how can we get to
them?"

"This is the day the world changes," said John Wilkin, a University of
Michigan librarian working with Google.

"It will be disruptive because some people will worry that this is the
beginning of the end of libraries.

"But this is something we have to do to revitalise the profession and make
it more meaningful."
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Well what kind I say.....   finally the technocrats and computer geeks at
Google have suddlenly realized how important libraries are in our modern
world.

More information at Washington Post newspaper,
http://www.washingtonpost.com
(free one-time registration required)


Godfrey Oswald,
author,
"Library World Records" book
http://www.lwrw.com