Friends: Here is a news story from Xinhuanet. Google is digitizing books in major libraries in the USA and UK, so anyone anywhere (with an Internet connection) can read those books. Google is digitizing books in University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford University, Oxford University and the New York Public Library and now the (one hundred or so) libraries of the University of California. Google is also negotiating with the US Library of Congress. Yahoo and Microsoft have joined the Internet Archive to form the Open Content Alliance and they are also digitizing books in major western libraries. What about the great treasures in non-western languages such as Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali, Telugu, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Oriya, Sanskrit, etc.? Should we not organise such masssive digitization with appropriate search capabilities? Under the Millennium Digitization (?) programme, efforts are on to digitise books in India and China, but I am not sure how large the effort is and how comprehensive. As one who speaks Tamil, I will be interested to see all the great classics of Tamil literature as well as the works of contemporary writers such as Asokamitran, Jayakanthan and Sujatha (to name only a few) to be freely available for all the80 million or so Tamils living around the world. Best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] From Xinhuanet Google Inc. on Wednesday said the University of California has agreed to having books from its libraries' collections digitized and made searchable within the company's controversial library project. The UC system's 34 million books are spread across more than 100 libraries on 10 campuses, making it the largest academic research library in the world. The full text of books in the public domain will be available through Google Book Search, while only snippets of copyrighted books will be viewable, along with information about where they can be bought or borrowed. The UC system joins the University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford University, Oxford University and the New York Public Library in making book collections available to Google. The latter is making available only books in the public domain. The participants support of the project is in contrast to writers and publishers who are suing Google to prevent them from digitizing books without first getting their permission. The UC system believes Google's policy of providing only snippets of copyrighted works in search results is sufficient protection. Google announced its library project last year, prompting separate lawsuits by the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild. The organizations are arguing that Google should first seek the permission of copyright holders before digitizing books. Google is arguing that its actions are legal, since it only offers snippets of copyrighted material. The cases are pending. Google is working with the U.S. Library of Congress on a similar effort. For Google, the new momentum for its Book Search Project is the latest in a string of high-profile deals it has announced over the past week in which it signed a major search and advertising contract with News Corp., the owner of MySpace.com, and a video advertising and delivery deal with Viacom, owner of MTV. Friends: Here is a news story from Xinhuanet. Google is digitizing books in major libraries in the USA and UK, so anyone anywhere (with an Internet connection) can read those books. Google is digitizing books in University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford University, Oxford University and the New York Public Library and now the (one hundred or so) libraries of the University of California. Google is also negotiating with the US Library of Congress. Yahoo and Microsoft have joined the Internet Archive to form the Open Content Alliance and they are also digitizing books in major western libraries. What about the great treasures in non-western languages such as Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali, Telugu, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Oriya, Sanskrit, etc.? Should we not organise such masssive digitization with appropriate search capabilities? Under the Millennium Digitization (?) programme, efforts are on to digitise books in India and China, but I am not sure how large the effort is and how comprehensive. As one who speaks Tamil, I will be interested to see all the great classics of Tamil literature as well as the works of contemporary writers such as Asokamitran, Jayakanthan and Sujatha (to name only a few) to be freely available for all the80 million or so Tamils living around the world. Best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] From Xinhuanet Google Inc. on Wednesday said the University of California has agreed to having books from its libraries' collections digitized and made searchable within the company's controversial library project. The UC system's 34 million books are spread across more than 100 libraries on 10 campuses, making it the largest academic research library in the world. The full text of books in the public domain will be available through Google Book Search, while only snippets of copyrighted books will be viewable, along with information about where they can be bought or borrowed. The UC system joins the University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford University, Oxford University and the New York Public Library in making book collections available to Google. The latter is making available only books in the public domain. The participants support of the project is in contrast to writers and publishers who are suing Google to prevent them from digitizing books without first getting their permission. The UC system believes Google's policy of providing only snippets of copyrighted works in search results is sufficient protection. Google announced its library project last year, prompting separate lawsuits by the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild. The organizations are arguing that Google should first seek the permission of copyright holders before digitizing books. Google is arguing that its actions are legal, since it only offers snippets of copyrighted material. The cases are pending. Google is working with the U.S. Library of Congress on a similar effort. For Google, the new momentum for its Book Search Project is the latest in a string of high-profile deals it has announced over the past week in which it signed a major search and advertising contract with News Corp., the owner of MySpace.com, and a video advertising and delivery deal with Viacom, owner of MTV.