Tuesday, October 28, 2008

All The World's A Library

Wonderful news from Google:
Google was built on the principle of making the world's information more accessible and useful. Before the company was even founded, Larry and Sergey imagined a way to make it easier for anyone, anywhere, to access the information held within the world's books. Search simply isn't complete without that content, and providing more access to more books is a vision Google has never lost sight of.

Four years ago, almost to the date, we first announced Google Book Search. Since we launched the service, we've heard countless stories about Book Search helping readers all over the world find books in over 100 languages on topics as diverse as The Physics of Star Trek and the history of Wood Carvings in English Churches. We've seen millions of people click to buy books or find them in a library, and more than 20,000 publishers have joined our Partner Program to allow readers to preview the books they find before buying them.

While we've made tremendous progress with Book Search, today we've announced an agreement with a broad class of authors and publishers and with our library partners that advances Larry's and Sergey's original dream in ways Google never could have done alone.

Continue reading.

You can also check out Google's new site detailing what these developments will mean for Internet users, read more at the company's dedicated Inside Book Search blog, or just start searching for and through books.

Regardless of how amazing this news is, it's really just the beginning.

(Cross-posted at D-(eye) on Arts.)

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