The NYT now reports on Google's program to digitize some of the world's most important libraries, and it is truly an amazing project. Google was founded at Stanford in partial association with that university's digital library effort, so this must be a pretty proud day for Stanford, which is…
The
NYT now reports on
Google’s program to digitize some of the world’s most important libraries, and it is truly an amazing project. Google was founded at Stanford in partial association with that university’s digital library effort, so this must be a pretty proud day for Stanford, which is a participant, as well as the original Googlers. John Markoff spoke to Larry Page:
Mr. Page said yesterday that the project traced to the roots of Google, which he and Mr. Brin founded in 1998 after taking a leave from a graduate computer science program at Stanford where they worked on a “digital libraries” project. “What we first discussed at Stanford is now becoming practical,” Mr. Page said.
The details: Google is working with Stanford, the University of Michigan, Harvard, Oxford, and the New York Public Library to make millions of books available in its index. For now the project is in pilot phase, but there are hopes and expectations this will go big in the next few years. A source told me the project was originally named Google Library, but for now it will exist under the Google Print moniker. An example of Google Print is here. The screenshot at left is what I was provided by Google for today’s launch.
The implications here are significant. First, the idea that the world’s knowledge, as held through books and libraries, is opening up to all via a web browser cannot be understated. It’s one thing to have the an original copy of The Origin of Species on the shelves, where students and interested parties have to travel to find it. It’s another to have it available to everyone via a search index and your web browser. Second, this move clearly puts Google in the category of innovator when it comes to adding information to their index. But it also raises significant business model questions, one that are both exciting and unanswered. I brought them up in an earlier post:
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