Oxford-Google Digitization Project reaches milestone

This summer will see the completion of the first phase of the Oxford-Google Digitization Partnership project at the Bodleian Library. For the first time a large proportion of Oxford’s 19th century out-of-copyright holdings will be made easily accessible to a new generation of readers around the globe.

The Library’s partnership with Google started in 2004, making Oxford the first European partner in this mass-digitisation project. The initiative is part of the Libraries’ ongoing commitment to enhance access to their vast and unique collections for the researchers at all levels worldwide. The Oxford-Google partnership aims to make available many hundreds of thousands of books from the Bodleian and other Oxford libraries, representing a major contribution to the public domain content available through Google Book Search.

The works digitised include titles in English, German, Spanish French, and many other languages – from classic literature to scientific volumes in fields such as Geography, Philosophy, and Anthropology. Examples of works now available through Book Search include: the first English translation of Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy from 1729, the first edition of Jane Austen's Emma, John Cassell's Illustrated History of England and Charles Darwin’s first edition of On the Origin of Species.

The full text of these works can be searched and read on Google Book Search, and readers can download and print a copy in PDF format, where local copyright laws permit.

http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2009/090327.html
http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/bodley
http://books.google.com/