Google to digitize library collections.A new project from Google Inc. will allow Internet users to visit some of the world's most prestigious libraries without leaving their homes. The search engine giant has announced a partnership with five university and public libraries to digitize To convert an image or signal into digital code by scanning, tracing on a graphics tablet or using an analog to digital conversion device. 3D objects can be digitized by a device with a mechanical arm that is moved onto all the corners. millions of books in their collections and make portions of the text available online for free. Participating libraries include those at Stanford University Stanford University, at Stanford, Calif.; coeducational; chartered 1885, opened 1891 as Leland Stanford Junior Univ. (still the legal name). The original campus was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. David Starr Jordan was its first president. , Harvard University Harvard University, mainly at Cambridge, Mass., including Harvard College, the oldest American college. Harvard College Harvard College, originally for men, was founded in 1636 with a grant from the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. , the University of Michigan (body, education) University of Michigan - A large cosmopolitan university in the Midwest USA. Over 50000 students are enrolled at the University of Michigan's three campuses. The students come from 50 states and over 100 foreign countries. , Oxford University; and the New York Public Library New York Public Library, free library supported by private endowments and gifts and by the city and state of New York. It is the one of largest libraries in the world. . Users will be able to type key words into Google's main Web search site to retrieve links to portions of text from library books. The books-related results will appear at the top of the search-result page. When users click on a book-related result, images of the relevant scanned pages with their search terms highlighted will appear. Google's service also allows users to type in their ZIP code zip code System of postal-zone codes (zip stands for “zone improvement plan”) introduced in the U.S. in 1963 to improve mail delivery and exploit electronic reading and sorting capabilities. to find out whether books that show up in their search results are owned by their local libraries. How much of each publication is accessible will depend on copyright restrictions. Books in the public domain will have their full text available through the search engine. For works protected by copyright, Google will show either bibliographic information or snippets of text that appear around a user's search term. When possible, in the search results, Google will point users to libraries where they can access the publications, or to online retail sites where they can purchase copies. Scanning millions of books, some fragile, is no easy task. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. reports, Google is using its own secret scanning and digitizing "Digitizer" redirects here. For the computer device, see Digitizing tablet. For the digitizer in Tablet PC's, see Tablet PC. Digitizing or digitization technology that it says will not harm older, delicate books. Books will roll into Google's Web search index as they are scanned and digitized. The full text of all publications will be scanned. Google is picking up the cost of putting online thousands of the New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Public Library's 20 million volumes as part of a pilot project. Books selected for the project will be those no longer covered by copyright and deemed to be of public interest. Google's program with Harvard, which has 14.6 million volumes, will also begin as a pilot program. Google plans to scan about 40,000 volumes before Harvard decides whether to include its entire collection. Harvard officials said they like the idea of making their books more widely available, but they are concerned about potential damage from the conversion process as well as the possibility that books could be lost. The University of Michigan is making its entire collection of 7.4 million volumes available to Google for scanning and searching by computer users. Books still covered by their original copyright will be searchable, but only a sentence or two will be accessible via search. Older books in the public domain will be available to be read or searched in their entirety on Google, but they will not be available for printing. While Google's ambitious project could help millions of Internet users gain access to information once buried deep in library stacks, some question whether a for-profit company should be a gatekeeper In an H.323 IP telephony or video environment, a gatekeeper is a device that manages domains and provides call control. It is used to translate user names into IP addresses, to authenticate users and to manage network resources. for such vast storehouses of knowledge. Also, publishers worry that Google's efforts will hurt book sales. But the participating libraries say online access can be a boon to researchers and a benefit to people who could not otherwise access high-quality collections. |
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