The University of Texas Library System and Google have launched an effort to digitize, or electronically archive, a million books over the next six years as part of Google's larger initiative started in 2004.

Most of the one million books will come from UT Library's Latin American Collection, one of the most extensive in the country, said Doug Barnett, a project manager for the UT Library System.

Stanford, Harvard and Princeton universities and the New York Public Library are already involved similar projects, as are some foreign universities, like Oxford and Ghent.

Barnett said a major benefit of the project will be making vast amounts of information available through text search, allowing students and researchers from other universities to access new materials.

The process of digitizing a million books will be an expensive and time-consuming endeavor, Barnett said. UT library staff will have to identify, find and collect books for Google to pick up to begin the archiving process. Google then takes the books to its digitizing facilities and scans the books into its massive database.

Google pays for the digitization costs, which can amount to more than $100 per book. The University will pick up the tab for compiling the books for the project.

Google's efforts to digitize books have raised copyright issues that have irked authors and publishers, who are suing the search giant for copyright violation. Barnett said the University cares about copyright and intellectual property, and believes this arrangement was made in good faith with respect to copyright laws. He said UT would respect any decision or settlement made by the courts in regard to this project.

Other universities have also recently announced similar programs to join the Google Books effort, including Michigan State, Northwestern, Ohio State and the University of Chicago.

Inside Higher Ed reported that Amazon.com and Emory University have announced a competing effort in which Emory will digitalize about 200,000 of its books that are in the public domain and will make the materials available for free or as a per-cost print-out option through the online retailer.

The contract between UT and Google will be reevaluated in six years for potential renewal.

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