University Libraries digitizes thousands of books for Google Books project

In 2019, the University Libraries began a partnership with Google Books and HaithiTrust Digital Library to create digital copies that will preserve and improve access to difficult to find and rare materials in our collections. Since then the Libraries have sent 92 thousand items to be digitized, which we estimate have saved the Libraries $9 million if we digitized the materials ourselves.

One item in our collection has even made its way to our Rare and Distinctive Collections due to the Google Books project.

“A professor at Brown University discovered a periodical from the Victorian era that we had sent to be digitized and inquired about it,” said Claire Hoag, head of Materials Management. “Because of this we discovered that the periodical was part of a set once owned by the editors and they had marked it with valuable marginalia. We sent all the other volumes in the series to Google to be scanned and moved this volume into our Rare Books Collection.”

Books digitized through this partnership are sent to Google and processed using non-destructive scanning techniques to minimize damage to materials. The items are returned to the Libraries approximately two months later to minimize the disruption to the availability of the materials.

“The Libraries are committed to increasing access to information as a public good,” said Gabby Wiersma, director of the Libraries Collection Management Team. “We are proud to contribute to this growing body of openly accessible scholarly resources.”