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September 20, 2005

Google to scan books online

This will be revolutionary. There is a generation who read "on-screen" and the fact they are predominantly out of print books, could make Googles work the more powerful.

Under the publishers' program, Google has deals with most major U.S. and U.K. publishers. It scans titles they submit, displays digital images of selected pages triggered by search queries and gives publishers a cut of revenues from accompanying ad displays.

But publishers aren't submitting all their titles under that program, and many of the titles Google wants to scan are out of print and belong to no publisher at all. Jim Gerber, Google's director of content partnerships, says the company would get no more than 15 percent of all books ever published if it relied solely on publisher submissions.

That's why it has turned to libraries. Under the Print Library Project, Google is scanning millions of copyright books from libraries at Harvard, Michigan and Stanford along with out-of-copyright materials there and at two other libraries.

September 20, 2005 at 01:07 AM in Portals | Permalink | TrackBack (15) | Top of page | Blog Home