U of M enters books agreement with Google
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an interview University of Minnesota and CIC schools enter into ground-breaking agreement with Google
Minneapolis (06/06/2007)—The University of Minnesota, along with the 11 other leading Midwest universities in the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), have entered into a ground-breaking collective agreement with Google to digitize up to 10 million bound volumes, nearly doubling the number of universities participating in the Google Books Library Project.
The U of M and the CIC announced the agreement today, June 6. The agreement allows Google to digitize significant portions from CIC library general collections. In addition, collection areas of particular strength and distinction will be contributed from each university. The distinctive collections the U of M will have digitized could include, for example, Scandinavian history, literature and culture; forestry; bee-keeping; medicine, including oncology, radiology and pediatrics.
This collaborative approach brings together the holdings of some of the world's largest libraries into one massive digital resource. The CIC includes the University of Minnesota, University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Indiana University, University of Iowa, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“The University of Minnesota is making history today,” said University of Minnesota Provost Thomas Sullivan. “For our students and researchers, speedy access to printed volumes will change the face and pace of scholarly research. Digitizing these collections is also a public good and supports the land grant mission of the University of Minnesota.”
This project fits well into the U of M's goal to become one of the top three public research universities in the world, Sullivan said. “With this agreement, the university joins the ranks of prestigious institutions like Harvard University, Stanford University and Oxford University, which already are participating in the Google Book Search project,” Sullivan said.
The collaborative nature of this agreement makes it unique. In fact, this library digitization agreement is one of the largest cooperative actions of its kind in higher education, said Wendy Pradt Lougee, University Librarian at the University of Minnesota and member of the six-person team that negotiated the agreement with Google.
"By harnessing the complementary strengths and resources of CIC institutions, this unprecedented agreement will give students, scholars and the public access to an extraordinary range of collections of distinction,” Lougee said. “Google's vast capacity for digitization far exceeds that of any of the participating institutions alone, making this effort a true partnership that reveals the historical depth of these collections from the heartland."
The contract between Google and the CIC institutions is for six years with an option to renew. Google will fund digitization of up to 10 million volumes in CIC collections, including as many as one million volumes from the University of Minnesota. Each CIC institution will cover the costs of preparing the books for digitization. Prior to the Google Book Library initiative, libraries estimated the costs of digitization at approximately $60 per volume, according to the CIC. Hence, the value of this project to the University of Minnesota could reach $60 million.
Once digitized, Google will make these volumes available through its free globally accessible search service and through a "hosted" service available only to the CIC members.
The digitization initiative will include both public domain and in-copyright materials in a manner consistent with copyright law, Lougee said. Google will make available brief “snippets” of in-copyright materials through its search engine, directing viewers to avenues for purchase or library lending. Public domain materials can be viewed, searched or downloaded for printing in their entirety from the Google site. For U.S. published material, “public domain” works generally include those published prior to 1923 and many federal, state and local documents.
For the University of Minnesota Libraries and its peer CIC institutions, this initiative is also an important step to preserve and stabilize the libraries' legacy collections, providing broader and more in-depth access to historically significant print resources.
“This partnership allows for library digitization at a scale and scope that would not be possible within the limited means available to the individual universities. To preserve important intellectual content without incurring the significant costs of digitization costs is a great benefit to the University of Minnesota and the other institutions,” Lougee said.
As a part of the agreement, the consortium also has the ability to create a first-of-its-kind shared digital repository to collectively archive and manage the full content of as many as five million public domain works held across the CIC libraries.
The shared repository will enable librarians to collectively archive materials over time, and ultimately allow scholars to access a vast array of material with searches customized for scholarly activity.
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