Google Agreement

Google Agreement

Google Book Search Partnership (June 2007)

Big Ten Academic Alliance members partneried 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 preserves in digital form deteriorating 19th century books included in this 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 allows for library digitization at a scale and scope that would not be possible with the limited means available to individual universities. This partnership will allow the universities to digitize collections that 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 is 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 member universities' rich array of public domain holdings digitized under the Agreement.

The Big Ten Academic Alliance has been a national model of inter-university collaboration for more than 50 years. The consortium's member universities believe the BTAA 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 will also leverage their assets collectively; and universities will seek out innovative partnerships with outside entities to achieve shared goals.