Italian ministry, Google launch partnership to digitize one million books

The Italian Cultural Heritage Ministry and Google launched on Wednesday a partnership aimed at digitizing up to a million out-of-copyright Italian books from the National Libraries of Rome and Florence.

Culture Minister Sandro Bondi, at a press conference here, praised the agreement as "unique in its kind."

"It's the first time a government allows a web leader access to a national library collection," he said, stressing that Italy was proving to be a front-runner of digitization in believing that the Internet can help spread and preserve a country's cultural heritage.

The agreement will make available to readers around the world the works of important Italian masters, philosophers, poets and writers including Machiavelli, Dante, Petrarca, Leopardi and Manzoni. Original Renaissance texts will be scanned as well, such as medical books and the writings of scientist Galileo Galilei.

The partnership will bring Italian culture, history and literature directly on the computer screen of millions of Internet users. At the same time, scanning works is a means to preserve them from natural calamities such as floods, library fires and time flow, explained Mario Resca, the ministry's director for cultural heritage promotion.

The Italian libraries have already digitized some 285,000 book titles and publication information. The online cataloguing is expected to be completed in the next two years.

Google will cover the costs of digitizing all works and will set up a scanning center in Italy.

Source: Xinhua