Google and the British Library plan to digitize 250,000 out-of-copyright books

Great news for fans out old, out-of-print literature that’s practically impossible to get your hands on nowadays. The British Library and Google have announced that they will be working together to digitize 250,000 out-of-copyright books from the Library’s collections (from years 1700-1870). The aim of this move is to increase access to anyone who wants the books for research or reading purposes.

The books will be selected by the British Library, while Google will have the dirty job of digitizing all the books. The books will be made accessible through Google Books and the British Library’s website for free. In addition to books; pamphlets and periodicals will be included in the digitization project as well, though the focus of the project will be on material that isn’t available online already.

With over 40 million pages to scan, hopefully this doesn’t end up being scrapped like the Google News archive project. History buffs are going to have a ball of a time combing through the scanned material.

[Press Release]