The WLA Blog

UW-Madison Libraries/Google Partnership
a presentation by Ed Van Gemert, Deputy Director, General Library System, UW-Madison; and Irene Zimmerman, Head, Cataloging Department and Google Project Manager, UW-Madison
http://www.library.wisc.edu/digitization/.

• What is Google Book Search (GBS)? http://books.google.com/
  
• Wisconsin's involvement

GBS allows you to search the full text of books, if the item is pre-1923

The books in GBS come primarily from 2 sources:

1. publishers
2. libraries

Once you've searched GBS and found a book, you can...

• browse books online under full view, limited preview, or snippet view (if item is post-1923; in copyright)
• search within the book
• find similar titles
• buy the book or request it through interlibrary loan
• download public-domain books

digitization of books is achieved through non-destructive scanning

online items are not preservation quality; it's all about discovery & access to materials

Wisconsin's involvement:

• UW-Madison initiated discussions in early 2006
• established partnership with the Wisconsin Historical Society
• contract agreement negotiations from May-Oct 2006
• developed "Statement on Principles and Values"
• the agreement stipulates a university digital copy of each file, including items that are still in copyright
• primary focus areas: Federal government documents, state government documents, historic documents, patent info
• additional books from the genealogy collection from Wisconsin Historical Society, and theses & dissertations
  
• the first shipment of books was sent to Google 3 Apr 2007; materials from several libraries are shipped to Google every 4 weeks
  

Google paid for all the costs of preparation, shipping, and digitization

shared digital repository among CIC libraries (Michigan, Indiana, et. al.)

Project Planning: a project management team was appointed, based on advice from a Google liaison

Determined criteria for inclusion based on size, format, and condition of book

the book's temporary location in MadCat indicates it's checked out

Upcoming issue --how to get links to the digitized book into the book's bibliographic record in MadCat

the more of a book a publisher shows, the more copies of books it sells

Labels: conference, speakers, UW-Madison, Wisconsin Historical Society, WLA, WLA2007