Google To Digitize, Make Available British Library's Historical Holdings 86
pbahra writes with part of an excellent story at the WSJ: "The British Library today announced its first partnership with Google, under which Google will digitize 250,000 items from the library's vast collection of work produced between 1700-1870. The Library, the only British institution that automatically receives a copy of every book and periodical to go on sale in the United Kingdom and Ireland, joins around 40 libraries worldwide in allowing Google to digitize part of its collection and make it freely available and searchable online, at books.google.co.uk and the British Library website, www.bl.uk. ... As well as published books, the 1700-1870 collection will also contain pamphlets and periodicals from across Europe. This was a period of political and technological turmoil, covering much of the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, the introduction of UK income tax and the invention of the telegraph and railway. All of these topics are covered, as are the quirkier matters of the day, such as the account, from 1775, of a stuffed hippopotamus owned by the Prince of Orange."
Not the only one... (Score:4, Informative)
This is not the only British library that gets all publications, The National Library of Wales (http://www.llgc.org.uk/) also gets all publications that are published in the UK (and there is likely one also in Scotland)
Re:Not the only one... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually the BL really is the only one to automatically get all publications. Five other libraries are entitled to a free copy upon request.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_deposit#United_Kingdom [wikipedia.org]
I know Cambridge gets everything with an ISBN, and from your post it sounds like Wales and Scotland do too. Things like PhD thesis only go to the BL though.
Re:Now I am intrigued... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Now I am intrigued... (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed, and the title is older than the English word "orange" itself. This was introduced to English in the early 1500's (just in time for Shakespeare to complain its lack of rhyme...), and is termed after the name for the fruit. Prior to this, the colour was "geoluhread" (yellow-red). Note, we don't call it "carrot", as (yellow-red) carrots were developed in the 1700s.
Now, the house of Orange comes from the city, originally "Arausio", in southern France. This was named for the local Celtic water God of the same name.
Being Irish, I admit I find it somewhat ironic that the "Orange-men" are originally termed for a pagan, Celtic god...
Re:But the IMPORTANT question is... (Score:4, Informative)
Here is a talk by librarian Brewster Kahle on book archiving [ted.com]. He created the Internet Archive internet.org.
With Google, its important to make a contract so that the content is really open to all.