Google & Italian Ministry to Transfer Galileo and Other Authors Online

Every big companies wants to get their feet wet in the online book boom that hit mainstream ever since the Kindle popped up on people’s wish lists last year.

 

But, it’s pretty stiff competition, and companies are doing their best to make their products unique.

 

And now, Google (News - Alert) has plans to scan up to $1 million old books from libraries in Rome and Florence.

 

With books stemming as renowned as Galileo Galilei, the partnership between Google Books and the Italian culture ministry is a first.

 

Mario Resca, culture ministry official, says that the agreement with Google will save the books’ content forever. And, since many of these books date back centuries, often times, the psychical conditions and weathered appearance can result in hard to read material.

 

Google will cover the costs of the scanning of the books, all of them out-of-copyright Italian works, including 19th-century literature and 18th-century scientific volumes.

 

Having already begun its own project simultaneously, to date, the Italian libraries have over 285,000 book titles online.