Lyon Municipal Library signs with Google Books

Google has announced a partnership with Lyon’s Municipal Library. This library, France’s second largest, has agreed to allow over 500,000 of its books to be digitized and made accessible as part of Google’s Book Search Library project. From the Bookseller (15 July, 2008):

Google and the municipal library of Lyon will make more than 500,000 books available online as part of Google's Book Search Library project.

The Lyon Municipal Library, which is France's second largest library after the national library in Paris, is the first French library to join the project. It will give internet users access to out-of-copyrights works, searchable through Google Book Search, with the chance to download the full texts from the historic and special collections.

It also includes works in Latin, Italian, English, German and Spanish, which will be added to Google's multilingual index.

Gérard Collomb, senator and mayor of Lyon, said: "[The decision] allows us to open our library doors to the rest of the world. Digitisation, combined with the increased usage of the internet now allows to preserve collections - with digital copies - while also opening up the possibility for users to access and consult books from a distance".

The Lyon Municipal Library is the 29th library to join the project, which also includes Oxford University, Harvard University, Stanford University and Princeton University.