To: All Faculty & All Academic Professionals & All Civil Service Staff
           <everybody@illinois.edu> 
    From: "The Office of the Provost" <provost@uiuc.edu>

Reply-To: provost@uiuc.edu
 Subject: MASSMAIL - CIC Announces Digitization Partnership

To the campus community:

Today the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), a consortium of 12 
world-class research universities, advancing their missions by sharing 
expertise, leveraging campus resources and collaborating on innovative 
programs, is announcing an agreement with Google to digitize distinctive 
collections across all its libraries as part of the Google Book Search 
project.  As a member of the consortium, our university is part of this 
important initiative.

Over the next several years, Google will scan and make searchable up to 10 
million public domain and in-copyright volumes in a way that is consistent 
with copyright law.  Public domain materials can be viewed, searched and 
downloaded in their entirety.  For books under copyright protection, a 
search will result in basic information (such as the book's title and the 
author's name), and a snippet of text surrounding the search term.  Users 
seeking further information from the text will be directed to avenues for 
purchase or library access.  

Also, this agreement anticipates the CIC's intention to create a shared 
digital repository, so that each university can "deposit" its digitized 
public domain files into a commonly funded and managed data storage 
system.  Over time, the shared digital repository will enable our 
librarians to archive and organize content collectively for scholarly 
activity, as well as design services such as customized searches for the 
academic community. When implemented, students and faculty will have 
convenient, desktop access to a vast array of public domain materials from 
across our 12 institutions.

The role of archiving and preserving the vast spectrum of written 
materials is a critical one for university libraries. Many works become 
out of print, or deteriorate with age, or are threatened by natural 
disasters or societal upheavals through the centuries. And as we move to a 
completely technological and digital environment, materials not available 
in a digital format will become less and less discoverable.  Digitization 
enables us to preserve our historical collections for all time.  

This partnership with Google will enable the CIC universities to digitize 
library content at a scale and scope not possible with the limited means 
available to individual institutions.  And now, with the future promise of 
a shared digital repository, our universities will enter into an 
ambitious, groundbreaking collaboration to collectively archive digital 
public domain materials previously housed within the bricks and mortar of 
individual libraries.

For more information on the CIC and today's announcement, visit: 
http://www.cic.uiuc.edu/digitalbooks.


Sincerely,

Linda Katehi
Provost

This mailing approved by:
The Office of the Chancellor

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