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Contact: Ellen Marsh
Phone: (607) 254-4680
E-mail: ebm7@cornell.edu
Cornell University Library becomes newest partner in Google Book Search Library Project
ITHACA, N.Y. (August 7, 2007) — Cornell University Library is partnering with Google Inc. to digitize materials from its superb collections and make them available online.
“In its quest to be the world’s land-grant university, Cornell strives to serve the scholarly and research needs of those beyond the campus. This project advances Cornell’s ability to provide global access to our library resources and to build human capacity across the globe,” said Cornell President David J. Skorton.
Google will digitize up to 500,000 works from Cornell University Library and make them available online using Google Book Search. As a result, materials from the library’s exceptional collections will be easily accessible to students, scholars and people worldwide, supporting the library’s long-standing commitment to make its collections broadly available.
“Research libraries today are integral partners in the academic enterprise through their support of research, teaching and learning. They also serve a public good by enhancing access to the works of the world's best minds,” said Interim University Librarian Anne R. Kenney. “As a major research library, Cornell University Library is pleased to join its peer institutions in this partnership with Google. The outcome of this relationship is a significant reduction in the time and effort associated with providing scholarly full-text resources online.”
Materials from Mann Library, one of 20 member libraries that comprise Cornell University Library, will be digitized as part of the agreement. Mann’s collections include some of the following subject areas: biological sciences, natural resources, plant, animal and environmental sciences, applied economics, management and public policy, human development, textiles and apparel, nutrition and food science.
“Mann Library's collections complement the contributions of the other Google library partners. Whether talking about entomology or plant biology, nutrition or human ecology, Mann Library has outstanding collections in the agricultural and life sciences as well as the related social sciences,” said Janet A. McCue, director of Mann Library. “Having Google index our collections is like having a massive concordance to the information in our books.”
Cornell is the 27th institution to join the Google Book Search Library Project, which digitizes books from major libraries and makes it possible for Internet users to search their collections online. Over the next six years, Cornell will provide Google with public domain and copyrighted holdings from its collections. If a work has no copyright restrictions, the full text will be available for online viewing. For books protected by copyright, users will just get the basic background (such as the book’s title and the author’s name), at most a few lines of text related to their search and information about where they can buy or borrow a book. Cornell University Library will work with Google to choose materials that complement the contributions of the project’s other partners. In addition to making the materials available through its online search service, Google will also provide Cornell with a digital copy of all the materials scanned, which will eventually be incorporated into the university’s own digital library.
About Cornell University Library
One of the leading academic research libraries in the United States, Cornell University Library is a highly valued partner in teaching, research and learning at the university, offering cutting-edge services and a full spectrum of library resources, from rare books and manuscripts to a rapidly expanding network of digital resources. The Library has a collection of close to 8 million volumes in print and more than 60,000 journals, 300,000 e-books and 39,000 e-journals.
Through such initiatives as the life sciences portal, the installation of a pioneering high-end mobile and flexible computer laboratory designed specifically for collaborative use and innovative scholarly publishing support, the Library is an integral component of the many educational programs and research projects under way at Cornell. To learn more about Cornell University Library, visit library.cornell.edu.