Denmark Welcomes Library Digitisation

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The world’s leading search engine Google is now on a mission to digitalize the libraries around the globe. What this means is that it will then make available on the internet treasured written works of various countries.

But not all nations are open to this idea. Some authors and publishers have declined Google’s proposal to scan libraries.

Denmark, however, welcomes this project. In fact, The Royal Library has accepted the invitation to let Google do the digitisation of its national literature. The library is enthusiastic over this development as the top search engine company is willing to fund the project whereas the Danish politicians have not made a positive action towards achieving this goal.

The Royal Library’s curator Erland Kolding Nielsen said the library will required up to half a billion kroner for the preservation of Danish literature. The proposed digitalisation will involve literature published before 2000. So far, the Danish parliament has only approved some 7 million kroner for the two-year project which will start in 2010 until 2012.

Google has already reached the 10 million volume mark in the digitisation of literature. It is targeting to reach 30 million volumes of literature for scanning and Denmark’s The Royal Library will offer 1.6 million volumes more. The institution earlier managed to collaborate with ProQuest based in the U.K. in digitizing books from the 15th and 16th centuries worth 10 million kroner. According to Google, it is committed to collaborating with as many libraries as they can but the focus is on European libraries within public domain.

With this new agreement with Google, The Royal Library will not be able to digitize literary works copyrighted after 1940. But even then, Denmark’s Culture Minister is grateful for this project saying that the country can continue to preserve its cultural heritage in digital form.

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