Trade.Information

An agreement with Google to scan selected library holdings into one digital repository

Purdue University's collection of library works in agriculture, engineering, science, and hospitality and tourism will soon be conveniently available around the globe.
As a member of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, Purdue announced Wednesday (June 6) that it, along with Indiana University, has joined each of the other Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago in an agreement with Google to scan selected library holdings into one digital repository. The materials to be digitized are from areas that each university considers its richest library collections.


The agreement means that people worldwide can find these library materials without leaving their own computers. Books that are not copyrighted will be available in digital form in their entirety. For a book under copyright protection, a search will result in basic background, such as its title and author's name, and a few lines of the text surrounding the term.

"Even though millions of volumes owned by the Committee on Institutional Cooperation libraries will be scanned, the only ones that will be full-text accessible and viewable will be those in the public domain (pre-1923)," said James Mullins, dean of Libraries at Purdue. "Materials covered by copyright (post-1923) will be full-text searchable through 'snippets,' similar to a catalog or an index. If the full-text item is desired, it must be retrieved from a library or purchased through a bookstore."

Aside from highlighting the interests and missions of the universities in a world that is becoming increasingly virtual, the project will preserve deteriorating 19th-century book collections, officials with the committee say. It also will make historic collections more accessible and relevant to scholars and students, and make the ideas and references within books easier to retrieve.

"The collaborative project entered into by the libraries of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation will enhance the research of not only the students and faculty of the institutions, but will provide the entire world with access to the millions of volumes held by the these libraries," Purdue Provost Sally Mason said.

Other universities are participating individually in Google's digitization. However, this marks the first time that a group of independent institutions have joined in a collective approach to the Google library digitization approach, according to the Committee on Institutional Cooperation.

An estimated 4 million to 7 million volumes will be digitized, with the potential for up to 10 million to be done. Mullins said Purdue could contribute as many as 500,000 to 750,000 volumes.

Google has several scanning centers across the United States and abroad, and the library materials will be shipped to one or more of these centers in various stages. The agreement calls for Google to have the books back within three weeks. While books are out, Mullins said, people will still be able to request copies of what they need through the interlibrary loan program.

Google will cover costs for transporting and digitizing the materials, as well as creating a "host site" of the group's digital content

News Inside News;

About the Committee on Institutional Cooperation

The Committee on Institutional Cooperation is a consortium of the 11 Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago. It was founded in 1958 and is governed by the provosts at each university, who act as a committee. It is headquartered in Champaign, Ill., and is funded by dues paid by each university. With campuses in eight states, the committee's universities enroll more than 300,000 undergraduates and 76,000 graduate students.

Overview
The national 12-university consortium called the Committee on Institutional Cooperation(the “CIC”) has entered into a Cooperative Agreement (the “Agreement”) with Google to digitize the most distinctive collections across all its libraries, up to 10 million volumes. As part of this Agreement, the universities will build a shared digital repository combining all the digitized public domain materials from their individual collections into one easily accessible on-line resource. The CIC is a consortium of 12 prominent research universities: University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Indiana University, University of Iowa, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of Minnesota,Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin – Madison. The CIC has a successful 50 year history of inter-university collaboration.
About this Agreement:
Why is the CIC entering into this Agreement?
CIC members are partnering with Google to digitize millions of bound volumes in their library collections. This is an important step to preserve the libraries’ print legacy collections, and to provide broader present-day and future users with in-depth access to historically significant print resources. The initiative will preserve in digital form deteriorating 19th century books included in the project, make historic collections more accessible to scholars, and make the ideas and references within books more discoverable through computerized ‘search and
retrieve’ capabilities. This partnership will allow for library digitization at a scale and scope that would not be possible with the limited means available to the individual universities. This partnership will allow the universities to digitize collectionsthat would have taken hundreds of years and many millions of dollars. Beyond the scope and speed of digitization made possible by this Agreement, the libraries’ intention to build a shared digital repository to house public domain materials is a ground-breaking collaboration. The repository will allow faculty, students and the broader public to immediately access the full content of all 12 universities’ rich array of public domain holdings digitized under the Agreement. The CIC has been a national model of inter university collaboration for 50 years. The consortium’s member universities believe the CIC library digitization initiative is an example of the kinds of cooperation—both among peers and with outside parties-- needed for higher education to remain strong and relevant in the future. Leading
universities will operate effectively in a common virtual environment; institutions will continue to develop individual core competencies but also will leverage their assets collectively; and universities will seek out innovative partnerships with outside entities to achieve shared goals.

Writer: Jim Bush, (765) 494-2077, jsbush@purdue.edu
Sources: James Mullins, (765) 494-2900, jmullins@purdue.edu
Sally Mason, (765) 494-9709, sfmason@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

Release link: http://news.uns.purdue.edu