Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Tuesday, December 15, 2009

80,000 digitized books OA from Cornell

Cornell University Library Partners with the Internet Archive, press release, December 15, 2009.

In an effort to make its materials globally accessible, Cornell University Library is sharing tens of thousands of digitized books with the Internet Archive. ...

The new collaboration repurposes nearly 80,000 books that the Library has already digitized in-house or through its partnership with Microsoft and Kirtas Technologies. All the books are in the public domain, printed before 1923 mainly in the United States. ...

Internet Archive, a nonprofit group dedicated to preserving materials in all formats and well known for its “Wayback Machine” application, includes the Library’s digitized collection in its searchable database. Books are available for free in multiple formats, including PDF, flip book and full text on-screen. ...

The collaboration with Internet Archive is another step in Cornell University Library’s cutting-edge participation in mass digitization initiatives. Earlier this year, the Library announced an expanded print-on-demand partnership with Amazon.com that allows readers to pay for reprinting of books on an individual basis.

“The Internet Archive is proud to process and host the books from Cornell — these collections are priceless,” said Brewster Kahle, founder and digital librarian of the Internet Archive. “We are happy that Microsoft put no restrictions on the scanned public domain books and Cornell is encouraging maximum readership and research use.”

Performing a simple search for one of Cornell University Library’s digitized books now brings up both a copy on Amazon and a free online copy on the Internet Archive.

For more information and to see Cornell University Library’s contributions, visit [link].

Comment. Compare, e.g., Yale, where digitization funded at the same time under the same Microsoft program but whose books have yet to find their way online.