RealProgrammer's Journal: Google Books and the Big Ten

The blog Modern Sourcery reports that Google Books and the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), comprising the Big Ten and the University of Chicago, have announced an agreement with Google to digitize works from its libraries as part of the Google Book Search project.

In a multi-year project, Google will scan and for search millions of items in the collections if the CIC, which includes 6 of the nation's 20 largest libraries.

According to a release,

Public domain materials can be viewed, searched and downloaded in their entirety. For books under copyright protection, a search will result in basic information (such as the book's title and the author's name), and a snippet of text surrounding the search term. Users seeking further information from the text will be directed to avenues for purchase or library access.

The CIC plans to implement a digital archive of the public domain material, both for preservation and to enable academic study and collaboration.

See the complete announcment (450K pdf) at the CIC site for more information on the CIC and the Google partnership.