Overview of the Project
- The University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries share Google’s mission to make the world’s great works of history and culture discoverable by anyone, anywhere in the world-simply by searching online.
- The digitization project will expand access to resources from the UW-Madison Libraries and the Wisconsin Historical Society Library. The combined 7.2 million holdings of these libraries comprise one of the largest collections of historical documents and books to be found in the United States. These collections are ranked 11th in North America by the Association of Research Libraries in Washington, D.C.
- The Wisconsin project will focus initially on public domain and historical collections that are free of copyright restrictions.
Who else is participating in this project?
The UW-Madison Libraries are the eighth library to participate in the Google Book Library Project. We are joining the University of California library system, University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford University, the New York Public Library, Oxford University, and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Google is also conducting a pilot project with the Library of Congress.
What is the goal of this project?
The goal of the Google Library Project is to make the wealth of knowledge in libraries around the world discoverable by everyone with access to the Internet. The result of the project will be to create a comprehensive, searchable, virtual card catalog of books and resources.
Why did UW-Madison Libraries want to participate in this project?
The UW-Madison Libraries and the Wisconsin Historical Society offer one of the largest collections of historical materials and public documents to be found in the United States. The collections are ranked 11th in North America by the Association of Research Libraries in Washington, D.C.
We want to make these important, and in many cases rare, materials searchable to people all over the world. Wisconsin is taking a leading role in preserving public domain works for future generations and making the Library’s resources widely available for education and research.
How does this fit with the mission of the Libraries?
Part of the stated mission of the UW-Madison Libraries reads “...the Libraries support the teaching, research, and outreach missions of the university by providing access to and delivery of information. To that end the libraries acquire, organize, make accessible, and preserve sources of knowledge in all formats...”
This project has three primary goals: storage, preservation and access. This project will provide archival storage, preservation and access to resources in digital form, for future generations.
How many works will be digitized?
The Libraries will digitize and archive more than 500,000 volumes from the collections of the UW-Madison Libraries and the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Will in-copyright books be included in the Wisconsin project?
We will begin initially with materials in the public domain such as historical documents, national, state and regional government publications and works published before 1923.
Are the Libraries violating copyright laws?
The Libraries will not violate copyright laws. This includes taking every effort to not violate the legitimate rights of content owners to control the distribution and use of works under copyright.
How does Google handle copyright?
Google is very respectful of copyright law. They have specifically designed Book Search to comply with it. Works in the public domain are available in full text. In the case of books they have digitized that are still protected by copyright, users will only get basic background (such as the book’s title and the author’s name), at most a few lines of text related to their search, and links to where they can buy or borrow a book. If publishers or authors don’t want to have their books digitized, they will be excluded.
What about the privacy issues related to Google's Library Project?
Google takes privacy of their users extremely seriously. Their policy is outlined at the following Web site: http://books.google.com/privacy.html.
Who is funding this?
Google assumes the cost of digitization. The Libraries will be assuming the costs of technical processing before and after digitization.
How will this affect access to the collections?
The Libraries will be very careful about what books are sent and will try to minimize the impact on users. There will be short periods of time when some books may be inaccessible within the Libraries however library staff will do everything they can to obtain materials in a short period of time for users.
