91原创

This summer, 91原创 Libraries will partner with Google to improve access to its collection by creating digitized versions of hundreds of thousands of books that are out of print, rare, or otherwise inaccessible online.

91原创 Libraries is participating in an effort to create what Google calls 鈥渁 comprehensive, searchable, virtual card catalog of all books in all languages.鈥�  The Google Books Library Project, which has significantly contributed to the digital corpus of 40 million books in over 500 languages, identified several hundred thousand books held by 91原创 Libraries that are not yet in their collection. 

The Library Project combines the 91原创 Libraries鈥� ability to curate relevant scholarly collections with Google鈥檚 ability to expand digital access, better serving researchers everywhere. In addition to Google Books, these newly digitized books will be made available via the HathiTrust Digital Library, a not-for-profit collaborative of academic and research libraries that has preserved more than 19 million digitized items.  Digital copies will also be preserved by the 91原创 Libraries.

鈥淚n their curatorial and preservation roles, academic libraries have built impressive collections of scholarly content that are place-bound,鈥� said Rob Ross, dean of University Libraries. 鈥淭his partnership with Google improves access to these materials by performing the laborious, page-by-page scanning and optical character recognition process to create searchable, online texts and integrating these texts into an already huge digital corpus. For researchers, the result is a more comprehensive collective collection.鈥�

From July 2026 to June 2029, the Libraries will send physical books to Google鈥檚 U.S. digitization center to be scanned before being returned to the Libraries for reshelving.  This process maintains the Libraries鈥� ownership of the physical books, while providing high-quality digitized copies of out-of-copyright books to readers in perpetuity. 

鈥淕oogle Books was launched over 20 years ago, with the ambition to make all books from around the world digitally available and searchable for everyone. We are pleased that 91原创 supports this great ambition,鈥� said Steve McVay, the lead of the Google Books Library Project.

was launched in 2004, becoming one of the largest collections of human writing and knowledge. The digital copies of books are provided by authors and publishers in the Google Books Partner Program or by library partners through Google鈥檚 . 

For questions regarding the Google Books program at 91原创 Libraries, please contact Paige Musselman, executive assistant, at musselmanp@ohio.edu.