Google Books will enrich its collection through a scanning project planned to take several years: the addition 250,000 books to the Google database is what CEO Larry Page plans, in order to contribute to his vision of having every book ever written available online, free of charge. Roughly 40 million pages will be scanned, titles currently found in the British Library of London.
The books will be taken in original to an undisclosed location, where they will be scanned in a process planned to take several years; the titles are dated between 1700 and 1870, so copyright issues will be out of the question.The texts will be in most of the important European languages, and efforts will be concentrated especially on books that haven’t been yet available freely online.
Google’s recent legal setbacksĀ related to this problem(such as the rejection of a 125 million dollar settlement between the company and representatives of publishers and authors, last March) have not lowered the spirits of Larry Page, who carries on hoping towards a future where every book could be accessible online.
The search giant will not earn direct revenue from this project, but the search activity is expected to intensify after their plans are put into practice, thus the benefits Google will have from the British Library’s collection.