Students working sleepless nights to finish up final papers and projects now have a chance to work in the comfort of their homes thanks to a developing Google feature.
Ball State University Libraries has begun using the Google Books Search Project, a large-scale book digitalization project of scanning books and placing their contents online where anyone can access the information. Students now have access to more than 500,000 books from all over the country.-á
Matthew Shaw, electronics resources librarian at BSU, said in 2004 Google teamed up with 12 institutions, such as the New York Public Library, Harvard, Oxford and Stanford universities.
Approximately 524,000 books are available online through GBSP, Shaw said. Most of the books were written between the early 1500s and 1924 because those books are no longer protected by copyright laws.
Google originally planned to digitize all books, regardless of copyright. However, some publishers and copyright owners would not allow Google to place the text of their books online. Since this slowed down the progress of the project, Google decided for the time being to concentrate on digitizing titles in the public domain, Shaw said.-á
That does not mean, however, that all books created before 1924 can be digitized, Shaw said.-á
"Some books written before 1924, like Charles Dickens' novels, have [new copyrights] and therefore would need permission to be digitized," Shaw said. -á
Google has reached agreements with some authors to digitize their books, even though they are not public domain, Shaw said.
Dean of Libraries Arthur Hafner said the project is revolutionary for students and staff alike.-á
"It's absolutely fantastic," Hafner said. "Once Google gets past all the copyright battles, this project will hold enormous promise. People sitting at their computer will have access to over 600,000 books. That's a real breakthrough."-á
GBSP is also revolutionary because it costs nothing for Ball State or anyone else to access it anywhere around the world, Shaw said, and it saves people from having to travel around the country in search of old or rare books. -á
"This is better because now you have some of the premier collections from all over the world right in from of you," Shaw said.-á
Shaw called GBSP "libraries without walls" because it takes books and information that previously were only available in libraries and puts it into the hands of people who need to use it. This access is something people in today's society dream of having, Shaw said.-á
"This Google project makes the dream a reality," Shaw said. "This gives information available to anyone at anytime, anywhere."-á
Google plans to have more than a million books digitized within the next six years, he said.
GBSP can be accessed through the Ball State library's Web site or directly at books.google.com.
For more informationThe institutions Google is working with are New York Public Library, the National Library of Catalonia, Harvard, Oxford and Stanford universities, University of Michigan, University of California, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Virginia, University of Texas at Austin, Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Germany's Bavarian State Library.-áWays to access GBSP - Ball State library's Web site (under G in the article and database section) or at books.google.com
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