Microsoft partners with British Library

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Microsoft has signed a deal with the British Library to digitise 100,000 of its books.

The software giant will use MSN Book Search to index 25 million pages of British Library content by next year, the pair announced.

The British Library confirmed its love of all things digital earlier this year, when it said it would make it a priority to update its infrastructure for the coming wave of digital content.

The library digitisation deal follows similar projects from the likes of Yahoo! and the Internet Archive, which Microsoft has recently become involved in, as well as Google's on-off Google Print scheme.

Google's digital library efforts have been dogged with controversy, with two separate copyright lawsuits filed against the search giant.

The British Library's initiative looks set to dodge the same legal wrangling by using out-of-copyright tomes.

Talkback

Oh here we go, great, so half of 'my' British library is going to be accessible by one company and the other for another, and I shouldn't wonder the costs will fluctuate in the same manner - not great.

I whish this was a more orchestrated effort, including all of the companies that are interested. What IS the point in pulling in different directions.

via Facebook 4 November, 2005 16:49
Reply

I wonder if the library has specified OpenDocumnet?

via Facebook 7 November, 2005 07:34
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Who will pay for the digitisation/ If MS will they charge for acessing/downloading? if free will BL make a charge for accessing/downloading?
If all libraries agreed to digitise using the same format and agreed to make access freeit would be a truly great step forward but most are so strapped for funds that they will want to at least cover their costs .

via Facebook 7 November, 2005 14:18
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Yes here we go again ..

Cant that bunch of twats from redmond ever get the F*** out of it , It is time to start pushing for a lot less M$ Corp in the UK we do not need to kepp billy boy fed and watered let the eeeeejigts that waste money on windBloZe do that the British Library has little enough to spare we should not allow it to be wasted on a company that is only interested in spreading it's pox infested virus ware globally .

It is also to be noted that there is still no action from M$ Corp to force Sony to stop installing Illeagal software on your PC without asking you ...

DO NOT BUY SONY MUSIC DC's they carry a rootkit that defeats your firewall..

via Facebook 7 November, 2005 16:41
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