Thursday, July 12, 2007

Japanese University Latest Library Partner in Google's Book Project

KeioUniversity is the 26th institution to join with Google in the latter's massive book digitization project.

From the July 10 announcement by Laura DeBonis, Director, Book Search Library Partnerships:

Last week, Keio University became the latest partner to join Google Books Library Project, and our first library partner in Japan. The combined collections of the Keio University libraries total more than two million printed works. Working together, Google and the Keio University Library will digitize at least 120,000 public domain books from these collections, so that readers around the world can view, browse, read, and even download public domain materials by simply searching online at books.google.co.jp. (You can also search these books by typing your search term in Japanese on books.google.com.)

"The Google project allows us to make our collections visible worldwide, allowing us to contribute to research and education on a global scale. Our university was founded in 1858 by Yukichi Fukuzawa, who was well known for his commitment to bringing information and media forward into the modern age. This makes Keio ideally suited to be the first Japanese library to participate in Google Book Search," says Professor S. Sugiyama, Director, Keio University Library.

We are glad to announce our first library partner in Japan with the Keio University Library. This is the 26th library to join the Google Books Library Project, which digitizes books from major libraries around the world and makes their collections searchable on Google Book Search.

No comments: