July 15, 2011
Cincinnati, OH
In a collaborative deal with The British Library, Google will digitize nearly 250,000 books from their collection. The books that will be scanned into Googles digital library are those dating from the French Revolution to the end of slavery, 1700-1870. In its ongoing partnerships with libraries worldwide, Google has already scanned nearly 13-million books.
The British Library is considered one of the preeminent libraries in the world with over 25-million titles in their collection, including some rare historical tomes dating back to 300 b.c.e.
There is current litigation between Google, publishers, authors, and heirs holding copyrights, regarding Google scanning books and excerpts without consent or permission. The legal action has been pending since 2005.
To date, over 65-million out-of-copyright books have been scanned and many of these are available as downloads and as apps for Apple’s iPad.
