Google Austria Book Scanning Deal
June 17, 2010
Google keeps on plugging away with its book scanning project. I have been one of the people who think that Google has flowed into a vacuum. The sniping and legal flaps have not taken my eye off the ball, however. Google wants to scan, ingest the content, and make money from its effort. I think a big part of the book scanning effort is directed at Google’s knowledge base initiative. The more content processed by the Google, the better able its numerical recipes are at making decisions. The making money part is important but not the whole story.
Google, according to India’s Economic Times, has deal with Austria. The story “Google to Scan 400,000 Austrian Library Books” said:
Austria’s national library said on Tuesday it has struck a 30-million-euro deal with US Internet giant Google to digitize 400,000 copyright-free books, a vast collection spanning 400 years of European history. Johanna Rachinger, the head of the ONB library, hailed what she called an “important step,” arguing at a news conference that “there are few projects on such a scale elsewhere in Europe.” The Austrian library project concerns one of the world’s five biggest collections of 16th- to 19th-century literature, totaling some 120 million pages, the ONB said in a statement.
Important points. This is a 30 million euro deal. The content is non exclusive. The library solves a preservation problem along with some access and money issues.
Look ahead 10 years. When you want a book from this collection, will you use Google or some other service? Google is aiming for the long haul and a much bigger play. What about the “regular” scanning activity? Just keeps on clicking along in my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, June 17, 2010
Freebie
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
