U of M joins Google Book Search

This just in from the University of Minnesota...

We write today to share news of an exciting new partnership in which the University of Minnesota is involved. The Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) has entered into a collective agreement with Google to scan and make searchable up to 10 million public domain and in-copyright volumes from CIC libraries in a way that is consistent with copyright law. In partnering with Google in its Google Books Library Project, the CIC will join 15 other participating universities, including Harvard, Michigan, California, Oxford, Princeton, and Texas. The University of Minnesota plans to provide up to one million volumes from our University Libraries collections to the digitization effort.

The CIC is an academic consortium of 12 leading Midwest research universities: University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Indiana University, University of Iowa, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

This project offers tremendous potential for the CIC, the broader scholarly community, and a worldwide public. Digitization facilitates  unprecedented access to these collections. With the ability to search text within volumes, research not previously possible will be enabled. Public domain works will be displayed fully; a search of in-copyright titles
will result in a small amount of text with mechanisms to purchase or secure a copy within a library. The CIC agreement is unique among the agreements Google has with other libraries in that "collections of distinction" from each institution will be included in their entirety, revealing in-depth and unique resources.

The partnership allows for library digitization at a scale and scope that would not be possible within the limited means available to the individual universities. In addition, the participating libraries intend to build a shared digital repository to house the digital copies of public domain
materials, enabling efficiencies possible only through collective action.

This groundbreaking agreement represents a major step forward for the University of Minnesota and the University Libraries during our strategic transformation. We're thrilled that our University community--students, faculty, staff--and the public will benefit for generations to come.
Another recent addition to Google Book Search - all the records in WorldCat. Whether or not the book is digitized, you will be able to find out if it's in a library near you.