While authors and publishers around the world are scared of Google's attempt to scan the world's libraries and make them available on the web, The Royal Library has agreed to let the search engine to do the job.
The reason for the move is that Google is willing to put up the money for the project, which the library has not been able to obtain from politicians.
Erland Kolding Nielsen, the library’s curator, estimates that the library needs up to half a billion kroner to preserve Danish literature published prior to the year 2000 in digital form. Parliament has, however, only approved up to 7 million kroner from 2010 to 2012 for the project.
‘I’m offering Google approximately 1.6 million volumes for scanning,’ Nielsen told Politiken newspaper. ‘Currently they have around 10 million volumes and their goal is to reach 30 million.’
Notes:
1) From the way the article reads, ProQuest will continue to digitise materials from the 15th and 16th centuries.
2) The Royal Library will not be able to digitise most content after approx. 1940 since works enter the public domain 70 years after the copyright holder dies.
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