Google Books
History
In 1998 co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched the now internationally used search engine, Google. However, what is perhaps lesser known is that around these years Page and Brin were working on another project known as "Google Print" or now called Google Books. This project, which was supported by the Stanford Digital Library Technologies Project, had the goal of getting digital libraries to work.[1] The much bigger and ambitious goal of this project however, was to digitize copies of every single published book.[2]
Google Books set out to make various agreements with research libraries such as, Stanford, Harvard and Oxford. After having digitized the libraries work, Google in return, gave them access to the copies made, thus completing the goal Google Books set out to do.
Issues
While Google Books can be seen as having a beneficial and groundbreaking influence in the publishing industry, there are various issues and concerns that this project has faced throughout the years.
References
- ↑ "Google Books History." Google Books, https://books.google.com/googlebooks/about/history.html
- ↑ Robinson, Solveig, C. The Book in Society: An Introduction To Print Culture. Broadview Press, 2014.
