KU Leuven University Libraries and Google have planned to digitise over 70,000 public domain books in the next two years, the American company announced on Tuesday.
Selected works of four major collections will be made freely available to the public through Google Books and the university's online library catalogue. Among these will be 20,000 books published during the 18th and 19th centuries by Belgian publishers, alongside a vast selection from the rich heritage and research collections of the Jesuits in Flanders and the Netherlands.
According to the announcement, the first batch of 5,000 books is set to be sent to Google for complete digitisation. Very soon, the academic community and students can expect a comprehensive and constantly updated information source.
"The Google Books digitisation project marks a monumental step forward in the valorisation of our collections," highlighted KU Leuven Libraries Director, Hilde Van Kiel. "Undertaking this project independently would have taken us more than 99 years."
This collaboration follows an earlier initiative where KU Leuven's libraries submitted their own digitised collection to Google for access via Google Books. Over 6,000 books and other public domain documents had already been uploaded.
