Um dos serviços menos conhecidos da Google é o Google Books. Este serviço permite que tenhamos acesso a numerosos títulos na íntegra ou parcial. Tem havido nos últimos tempos alguns problemas com a Google e as editoras sobre a forma como esta última disponibiliza o acesso aos títulos, mas no passado dia 22 de Março ambas as partes conseguiram chegar a um acordo que satisfaz ambas as partes.
No seguimento do esforço que a Google tem feito para ter no seu acervo o maior número possível de títulos, foi ontem anunciado que será feita a digitalização de 250 mil títulos da British Library e que esses livros e documentos estarão disponíveis para consulta através do Google Books sem qualquer restrição.
O esforço que agora será feito para digitalizar mais de 40 milhões de páginas irá abranger livros que datem entre o ano de 1700 e o ano de 1870. A escolha dos títulos a serem digitalizados pela Google será feita pela British Library e irá abranger períodos tão vastos como a revolução Francesa ou o fim da escravatura.
Depois de digitalizados, o livros serão disponibilizados para consulta, pesquisa e download através do site da Google, o Google Books e pelo site da British Library.
Desta forma será dado acesso a estas obras a todos os estudantes, investigadores e outros utilizadores que as pretendam consultar. Vai ser possível ter acesso pleno e sem restrições a estas obras em qualquer parte do mundo, como se estivéssemos fisicamente na biblioteca.
Segundo Dame Lynne Brindley, chefe executivo da British Library, a ideia de dar acesso livre a estes livros é uma ideia que tem já bastante tempo.
In the nineteenth century it was an ambition of our predecessors to give everybody access to as much of the world’s information as possible, to ensure that knowledge was not restricted to those who could afford private libraries. The way of doing it then was to buy books from the entire world and to make them available in Reading Rooms.
Dame Lynne Brindley revelou ainda que a British Library espera que a parceria com a gigante Google permita que este processo seja levado a cabo da melhor forma possível e que o resultado final seja de extrema utilidade para todos os leitores do Google Books e da British Library.
We are delighted to be partnering with Google on this project and through this partnership believe that we are building on this proud tradition of giving access to anyone, anywhere and at any time. Our aim is to provide perpetual access to this historical material, and we hope that our collections coupled with Google’s know-how will enable us to achieve this aim.
Foi ainda anunciado que estes trabalhos serão disponibilizados através da Europeana, a biblioteca Digital Europeia.
Ao todo, a Google tem já parcerias com mais de 40 editoras, o que vem realçar a importância deste serviço que é ainda pouco conhecido ou utilizado pela maioria dos utilizadores da Google.
Press Release
The British Library and Google to make 250,000 books available to all
Major project to digitise up to 40 million pages from 1700-1870, from the French Revolution to the end of slavery
The British Library and Google today announced a partnership to digitise 250,000 out-of-copyright books from the Library’s collections. Opening up access to one of the greatest collections of books in the world, this demonstrates the Library’s commitment, as stated in its 2020 Vision, to increase access to anyone who wants to do research.
Selected by the British Library and digitised by Google, both organisations will work in partnership over the coming years to deliver this content free through Google Books (http://books.google.co.uk) and the British Library’s website (www.bl.uk). Google will cover all digitisation costs.
This project will digitise a huge range of printed books, pamphlets and periodicals dated 1700 to 1870, the period that saw the French and Industrial Revolutions, The Battle of Trafalgar and the Crimean War, the invention of rail travel and of the telegraph, the beginning of UK income tax, and the end of slavery. It will include material in a variety of major European languages, and will focus on books that are not yet freely available in digital form online.
The first works to be digitised will range from feminist pamphlets about Queen Marie-Antoinette (1791), to the invention of the first combustion engine-driven submarine (1858), and an account of a stuffed Hippopotamus owned by the Prince of Orange (1775).
Once digitised, these unique items will be available for full text search, download and reading through Google Books, as well as being searchable through the Library’s website and stored in perpetuity within the Library’s digital archive.
Researchers, students and other users of the Library will be able to view historical items from anywhere in the world as well as copy, share and manipulate text for non-commercial purposes.
Dame Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive of the British Library said: “In the nineteenth century it was an ambition of our predecessors to give everybody access to as much of the world’s information as possible, to ensure that knowledge was not restricted to those who could afford private libraries. The way of doing it then was to buy books from the entire world and to make them available in Reading Rooms.”
Dame Lynne continued: “We are delighted to be partnering with Google on this project and through this partnership believe that we are building on this proud tradition of giving access to anyone, anywhere and at any time. Our aim is to provide perpetual access to this historical material, and we hope that our collections coupled with Google’s know-how will enable us to achieve this aim.”
Peter Barron, Director of External Relations, Google, said: “What’s powerful about the technology available to us today isn’t just its ability to preserve history and culture for posterity, but also its ability to bring it to life in new ways. This public domain material is an important part of the world’s heritage and we’re proud to be working with the British Library to open it up to millions of people in the UK and abroad.”
Professor Colin Jones, President of the Royal Historical Society and Professor of History at Queen Mary, University of London commented: “There is no doubt that the digitisation of this unique material will greatly benefit the research process. Academics are increasingly using new technologies at their disposal to search for innovative ways of investigating historical material to enable us to probe new questions and find alternative patterns of investigation. Digitisation gives us the freedom to not only do this quickly and remotely, but also enhances the quality and depth of the original.”
Examples of the items that will be digitised include:
- An address to the people, on the present relative situations of England and France, Robert Fellowes (1799) – pamphlet addressed to the British public commenting on the political situations in Britain and France
- Les droits de la femme. A la reine, [The Rights of Women. To the Queen] Olympe de Gouges (1791) – remarkable pamphlet that explores Queen Marie-Antoinette as both subject and object
- Proyecto de navegacion submarina, Narciso Monturiol [A Scheme for Underwater Seafaring: the Ichthyneus or Fish-Boat] (1858) – Monturiol was the inventor of the first combustion engine-driven submarine and this book describes his invention
- De Natuurlyke Historie van den Hippopotamus of het Rivierpaard, George Louis Leclerc (1775), [The Natural History of the Hippopotamus, or River Horse] – Translated from a French original but with additional material, including an account of the stuffed Hippopotamus in the Prince of Orange’s cabinet of curiosities.
This partnership demonstrates the Library’s further commitment to working with the private sector to digitise parts of its collections. Recently, the Library announced a partnership with brightsolid to digitise up to 40 million pages of its newspaper collections and previously the Library partnered with Microsoft to digitise 65,000 19th century books, some of which are now available as an App on Apple’s iPad.
It is also planned to make the works available via Europeana (http://www.europeana.eu/), the European Digital Library.
Google has partnered with over 40 libraries around the world.
