Austrian Books Online - Frequently Asked Questions
Last Update: 22.6.2011
- Why has the Austrian National Library formed a cooperation with Google?
- Why does Google want to collaborate with the Austrian National Library?
- What is the Google Books program?
- What makes the historic book holdings of the Austrian National Library which are being digitised in the project with Google so remarkable?
- How many books are being digitised?
- Are works in various languages being digitised?
- When has the project started?
- How long will the project take?
- What does the Austrian National Library get in return for providing its books to Google for digitisation?
- What are the Austrian National Library's plans with regard to the works being digitised?
- What advantages does the project bring to users of the Austrian National Library?
- What advantages does the project have for internet users in general?
- How does the project fit in with the mission statement of the Austrian National Library?
- What is the relationship of the project with Europeana / with the European Digital Library?
Questions on use
- Will the digitised books be accessible via the online catalogue of the Austrian National Library?
- How will I be able to search for a digitised book?
- Will it also be possible to use full text search in the digitised books?
- Will it be possible to read entire books online?
- Will digitised collected works be searchable on the basis of individual articles?
- I am interested in a book. How do I find out if and when a book is going to be digitised?
Questions on Google Books
- When has Google's book project started?
- Which other libraries are participating in the Google Books library program?
- Where can I see examples of books which Google has digitised for libraries?
- Can I already use Google Books?
- Where can I read about the data protection regulations for the Google Books service?
Legal questions
- Did the Austrian National Library conclude an exclusive agreement with Google?
- Is Google acquiring rights to the works being digitised?
- Are books being digitised as well that are protected by copyright?
- Which works are in the public domain?
- Are specific public domain works of the Austrian National Library excluded from the project?
- Will the Austrian National Library in future allow Google to digitise works that are not in the public domain?
- What is the relationship between the cooperation of Google and the Austrian National Library and the class action lawsuit of publishers' and authors' organisations against Google in the USA (the so-called "Google Book Settlement")?
- Where can I find more information on the so-called "Google Book Settlement"?
Questions on the project
- Who is financing the project?
- What effect does the project have on other digitisation projects of the Austrian National Library?
- What is the difference between this project and other digitisation projects of the Austrian National Library?
- What is the relationship of the cooperation between Google and other Austrian National Library - Digital Library projects?
- Where are the books being digitised?
- Can the Digitisation Centre be visited? How are the books being digitised by Google?
- How good is the quality of the digitised items?
- How are books chosen for digitisation?
- Will particularly valuable books be a part of the project?
- Could the books be damaged by digitisation?
- What happens to the books that have been digitised?
- If I need a book that is just now being digitised, how long must I wait before I can use it again?
- Will the Austrian National Library be identifiable as the source of the digitised objects?
- Will Google advertise in connection with digitised books of the Austrian National Library?
- Will the use of books of the Austrian National Library via Google Books in future be subject to utilisation fees?
- Will the project have an effect on how the Austrian National Library will collect and archive printed works in future?
- What effect does the project have on the conservation and restoration of the historic book holdings of the Austrian National Library?
- How does the Austrian National Library observe security considerations in connection with this project?
- Can I buy items digitised in this project?
- Where can I find further information on the Google Books project?
General questions
General questions
1. Why has the Austrian National Library formed a cooperation with Google?
The cooperation with Google enables the Austrian National Library to digitise its significant historic book holdings and make them accessible online to a worldwide public. Hence by providing the largest possible audience unrestricted access to the library's holdings the project Austrian Books Online supports one of Austrian National Library's most important strategic goals.
For several years the Austrian National Library has been working on the implementation of a Digital Library. That involves not only collecting, archiving and giving access to digital resources, but also systematic digitisation of the library's holdings. Through the cooperation with Google the digitisation of the historic book collection can be accelerated in a way that would otherwise be unthinkable.
In the framework of this cooperation only public domain works are being digitised.
From the responsibility to preserve unique, rare and valuable books accrues also the obligation of making them accessible to as many people as possible, and at the same time to keep them in the best possible condition for future generations. By digitising its entire historic book holdings the Austrian National Library is meeting this responsibility.
The Austrian National Library receives digital copies of all works digitised in the project Austrian Books Online and will make them available through its Digital Library. Thus the project will give online access to historic holdings, which are often unique and hard to find. The digitised holdings will be available for full text search. In the future the use of state-of-the-art search technologies will further improve the accessibility of the digitised books.
In addition the project Austrian Books Online contributes to the protection and conservation of the Austrian National Library's valuable historic book holdings. As books can be used as digital copies in the future not in every case the original will have to be consulted. The digital copies will be stored and preserved in the digital repository of the Austrian National Library. Thus this project makes an important contribution not only to the democratisation of knowledge, but also to the conservation of the cultural heritage kept in the Austrian National Library.
2. Why does Google want to collaborate with the Austrian National Library?
The historic book holdings of the Austrian National Library are among the world's most important collections. As well as one of the largest collections of historic books in German the Austrian National Library owns famous and comprehensive holdings in languages other than German from eastern and south-eastern Europe.
The digitisation of the Austrian National Library's historic book holdings will enrich Google Books and contribute to Google's aim of making books in all languages available and searchable worldwide.
In addition, the Austrian National Library maintains a complete electronic catalogue of its historic book holdings. These important data will further improve the quality of Google Books.
3. What is the Google Books program?
The cooperation of the Austrian National Library with Google is part of the so-called library project in the framework of Google Books. Google cooperates with a number of leading libraries across the world with the goal of digitising millions of books and making them available online in order to help users searching for books.
Books in the public domain can be downloaded or read in full text on Google Books. Also the digitised books of the Austrian National Library will be available via Google Books http://books.google.at/). Further information on Google Books can be found at http://books.google.at/intl/de/googlebooks/about.html.
4. What makes the historic book holdings of the Austrian National Library which are being digitised in the project with Google so remarkable?
As the former Imperial Court Library of the Habsburg Empire, the Austrian National Library is one of Europe's most eminent cultural treasuries. This is due to the geographic extent of the Habsburg Empire and the key role of the Habsburgs in European history.
The historic book collection of the Austrian National Library includes a total of almost half a million volumes, and is one of the five most important historic book collections worldwide.
From the very beginning books were collected not only from a representative point of view, but systematically according to scholarly and artistic criteria. Throughout history scholars from various countries all over Europe worked at the library: Dutchmen, Italians, Germans, Slovenes, Czechs, Poles, Croats and Austrians. The history of the library and its holdings is a mirror of the historical diversity and the multi-national heritage of Austria.
As early as in the 16th century rules were promulgated for cost-free deposit of books at the library to expand the holdings with new editions that were growing ever greater in number. That "legal deposit" was extended in 1808 to the whole monarchy which led to a considerable growth of the library. On top of the many book collections of the Habsburgs holdings were enlarged by valuable private libraries, such as the approximately 15,000 volumes of the famous library of Prince Eugene of Savoy (1737), and the libraries of public institutions, e.g. the Vienna University Library (1756).
The approximately 44,000 books from the 16th century are among the most valuable holdings of the library. Beside world famous books like the first complete translation of the Bible into German by Martin Luther (1534) there are the first works printed in Vienna, among them the "Wiener Heiltumsbuch" of 1502, which is not only unique but also shows one of the first illustrations of Vienna's Saint Stephen's Cathedral.
Because of its historical role the Austrian National Library also owns important and large holdings from eastern and south-eastern Europe. After the National Library of Slovenia the Austrian National Library is the richest source of south Slavic Reformation prints, mostly Slovenian. The only copy of the first Slovenian book from the middle of the 16th century is to be found in the Austrian National Library. The Austrian National Library also has the oldest printed work in Bulgarian. The most comprehensive eastern European section of the collection is in Czech language. In addition, the Austrian National Library is one of the few institutions outside Hungary that owns important holdings of Hungarica. Many Hungarian works of the 16th century can only be found in the Austrian National Library – for example, the only complete copy of the oldest work printed in Hungarian language.
5. How many books are being digitised?
The Austrian National Library and Google will work together to determine which books from the historic book holdings will be digitised. Currently it is planned to digitise about 600,000 volumes. The current focus of the project is limited to the digitisation of books.
6. Are works in various languages being digitised?
Yes. Apart from works in German the Austrian National Library owns extensive holdings in other languages, such as Czech, Hungarian, Polish, French, Italian, and Latin, which are being digitised as part of the project.
7. When has the project started?
The first phase of the project started in June 2010. Until the end of 2010 the organisational and logistic requirements for the operational project were established. The digitisation started in spring 2011 and first digitized books of the Austrian National Library are already available via Google Books.
8. How long will the project take?
The agreement with Google is planned for a duration of six years. As part of Austrian Books Online the digitisation of 600,000 volumes, that is approximately 180 million pages, can be carried out in a few years. That would not be possible without the collaboration with Google. So far even ambitious digitisation projects in libraries could typically digitise not more than about 5,000 volumes a year. Hence a project with the scale of our cooperation with Google would have needed more than 100 years.
9. What does the Austrian National Library get in return for providing its books to Google for digitisation?
Users will be able to find all of the works of the Austrian National Library digitised in the project Austrian Books Online via Google Books. That way, the historic book holdings are available online to a worldwide public. So far the access o was only possible in the reading rooms of the Austrian National Library.
Apart from that, the Austrian National Library will receive copies of all digitised items, which will then be preserved in the long-term and made accessible via the Digital Library.
10. What are the Austrian National Library's plans with regard to the works being digitised?
The digital copies of the books will be linked with the online catalogue of the Austrian National Library. In the future the digitised works can be accessed via the online catalogue by a simple click. Through the Digital Library of the Austrian National Library the digitised works will be searchable in full text as well. It is planned to develop further digital services in the future and offer all users a complete working environment in the Digital Library.
All digital copies from the cooperation with Google will be archived by the Austrian National Library. Through the creation and preservation of digital copies the project Austrian Books Online will make a contribution to the preservation of the historic holdings of the Austrian National Library, hence to the conservation of Austria's cultural heritage.
It is planned to make the works available also via Europeana (http://www.europeana.eu/), the European Digital Library.
11. What advantages does the project bring to users of the Austrian National Library?
The project Austrian Books Online will make the historic book holdings of the Austrian National Library available online within a few years. The possibility of finding digitised works easily, of performing full text searches, of reading online or downloading books, will greatly enhance the usability of the historic book holdings of the Austrian National Library. The works digitised in the cooperation with Google will be made available for non-commercial purposes (including publishing) to users of the Austrian National Library's Digital Library. Researchers, students, and other users of the Austrian National Library will have direct access to hundreds of thousands of works that were once often hard to find or were under limited access. They will be able to retrieve and view those works from anywhere in the world without the restrictions of opening hours. They will be able to search and retrieve digitised works, consult the tables of content or search within books for single phrases. Users will not only be able to read the digitised works online, but also to download them as e-books. Full text search will allow for posing totally new research questions to the digitised work. It is to be expected that in future new tools and computer-assisted methods like text-mining will be available for analysis and scientific research. Hence, for example, etymological analysis will have access to an enormous text corpus. Literary scholars will have new possibilities, for example, in examining literary influences, historians will be able to examine important historical sources with new instruments. This way the project Austrian Books Online makes a great contribution to supporting scholarship, research, and education.
12. What advantages does the project have for internet users in general?
The digitised works of the Austrian National Library will be available for retrieval and full text search via Google Books, the general Google search, and also via the Austrian National Library's Digital Library. This way the historic book holdings of the Austrian National Library will be made available to a worldwide public. Every internet user will be able to search, retrieve, read in full text and download the books. The project Austrian Books Online will significantly expend the availability of the historic book holdings for users all over the world.
13. How does the project fit in with the mission statement of the Austrian National Library?
In its mission statement the Austrian National Library describes itself as a "living bridge between the rich heritage of the past and the future-oriented demands of a modern information society". The digitisation project of the Austrian National Library and Google is in line with that mission statement; in future it will be possible to read online and search in full-text of one of the world's most important book collections.
14. What is the relationship of the project with Europeana / with the European Digital Library?
From the very beginning the Austrian National Library was involved in Europeana, the European Digital Library (http://www.europeana.eu/), which is promoted by the European Commission in the framework of the i2010 Digital Libraries initiative. E.g., the Austrian National Library is currently coordinating the large EU project EuropeanaConnect (http://www.europeanaconnect.eu/), one of the two core projects for implementing Europeana.
The digitised books resulting from the cooperation with Google will be made available via Europeana as well. A user looking for works in Europeana that are being digitised as part of the project Austrian Books Online will be forwarded to the full text in the Digital Library of the Austrian National Library.
Questions on use
15. Will the digitised books be accessible via the online catalogue of the Austrian National Library?
Yes. Users who find a book in the online catalogue of the Austrian National Library which has been digitised in the project Austrian Books Online can access the digital copy via a link in the catalogue, read it online, search in the full-text or download it as a PDF.
16. How will I be able to search for a digitised book?
Users can search for digitised books via Google Books (http://books.google.at/). Search results from books will also appear in the regular Google search. Public domain works can be displayed and downloaded without restrictions. That is the case for all works of the Austrian National Library that are being digitised in the cooperation with Google.
In addition, there are further services available in Google Books that are constantly being extended. Examples for additional services are links to libraries where users can read or lend the original. The books of the Austrian National Library will also be part of the Google eBooks service (http://books.google.com/ebooks).
Further information is to be found at http://books.google.at/intl/de/googlebooks/library.html.
Users will also be able to find the digitised books via the online catalogue of the Austrian National Library. The Austrian National Library will make the digitised items available via its Digital Library.
It is planned to make the digitised books accessible via Europeana (http://www.europeana.eu/), the European Digital Library, as well.
17. Will it also be possible to use full text search in the digitised books?
Part of the process of digitisation is optical character recognition (OCR). As a result it will not only be possible to display the digitised books and download them as PDFs, but users will be able to search in the full text.
18. Will it be possible to read entire books online?
Since all of the books of the Austrian National Library being digitised as part of the project Austrian Books Online are in the public domain, the digitised items can be made accessible online for free. The digitised items from the cooperation with Google will be available for users of the Austrian National Library's Digital Library free of charge and can be used for non-commercial purposes (including publication). Users will be able to read whole books both via Google Books and in the Digital Library of the Austrian National Library and perform full text search. In addition users will be able to download the works as PDFs.
19. Will digitised collected works be searchable on the basis of individual articles?
Digitised works will be completely searchable and accessible online. However, at this point of time, it is not planned to provide and offer additional bibliographical information at the level of individual essays or articles.
20. I am interested in a book. How do I find out if and when a book is going to be digitised?
Unfortunatly the Austrian National Library can not give any information about the exact date of digitisation of a single work.
Questions on Google Books
21. When has Google's book project started?
The project has started in the end of 2004. The first project partners were the libraries of the Universities of Michigan, Stanford, Harvard and Oxford, and the New York Public Library. At the moment, more than 40 libraries all over the world, among them 13 in Europe, are participating (as of June 2011).
22. Which other libraries are participating in the Google Books library program?
Including the Austrian National Library there are more than 40 leading libraries participating in the project worldwide until now.
The Austrian National Library was the second national library worldwide to cooperate with Google in its library program. In Europe there are 13 libraries participating in the project at the moment (as of June 2011).
At the moment Google is working with the following libraries:
Project partners in Europe:
- Bodleian Library, Oxford
- Bavarian State Library, Munich
- Library of the University Complutense, Madrid
- Library of Catalonia, Barcelona (5 libraries)
- Cantonal and University Library, Lausanne
- University Library, Ghent
- Municipal Library, Lyon
- Italian Ministry of Culture with
- National Library, Rome
- National Library, Florence
- Austrian National Library
- National Library of the Netherlands
- National Library of the Czech Republic
-
British Library
- University of Michigan
- Harvard University
- New York Public Library
- Stanford University
- University of California Libraries:
- University of California, San Diego
- University of California, Santa Cruz
- University of California, Los Angeles
- Northern Regional Library Facility
- University of Texas at Austin
- University of Virginia
- Columbia University
- University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Princeton University
- Cornell University
- Committee on Institutional Collaboration (CIC), bestehend aus:
- University of Chicago
- University of Illinois, Chicago
- University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
- Indiana University
- University of Iowa
- University of Michigan (bereits Einzelpartner, s. oben)
- Michigan State University
- University of Minnesota
- Northwestern University
- University of Wisconsin-Madison (bereits Einzelpartner, s. oben)
- Ohio State University
- Pennsylvania State University
- Purdue University
- NASA Library
Google has also completed a pilot project with the Library of Congress.
Project partners in Asia:
- Library of Keio University, Tokio
23. Where can I see examples of books which Google has digitised for libraries?
Examples and screen shots are to be found at http://books.google.at/googlebooks/library.html.
24. Can I already use Google Books?
Yes, at the moment there are already more than 15 million works accessible via Google Books (as of Oct. 2010, http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2010/10/on-future-of-books.html).
25. Where can I read about the data protection regulations for the Google Books service?
You can find the general privacy policy for Google services at http://www.google.at/privacy.html. That page describes how Google handles personal information when you use Google services, including Google Books.
The additional policies on data protection linked with Google Books can be found at http://books.google.at/googlebooks/privacy.html.
Questions and answers on data protection in connection with Google Books can be found at http://books.google.at/support/bin/answer.py?hl=de&answer=43733.
Legal questions
26. Did the Austrian National Library conclude an exclusive agreement with Google?
No, the agreement is not exclusive. The Austrian National Library is perfectly free to enter additional digitisation projects with other partners.
27. Is Google acquiring rights to the works being digitised?
No, Google does not acquire rights to these works. Of course the project does not alter the non-copyrighted status of the works being digitised.
28. Are books being digitised as well that are protected by copyright?
The works being digitised are exclusively from the historic book holdings of the Austrian National Library – none under copyright – from the early 16th to the second half of the 19th century. Works that are under copyright protection are expressly excluded from the project. The agreement between the Austrian National Library and Google excludes digitisation of works protected by copyright.
29. Which works are in the public domain?
In Austria copyright on literary works expires seventy years after the death of the creator. All of the works being digitised in the project are in the public domain.
30. Are specific public domain works of the Austrian National Library excluded from the project?
In principle the entire historic book holdings of the Austrian National Library are part of the project. Excluded are only particularly valuable books and works that cannot be digitised for conservation reasons or because of their format.
31. Will the Austrian National Library in future allow Google to digitise works that are not in the public domain?
Digitisation of works of the Austrian National Library protected by copyright is not planned within the project with Google.
32. What is the relationship between the cooperation of Google and the Austrian National Library and the class action lawsuit of publishers' and authors' organisations against Google in the USA (the so-called "Google Book Settlement")?
There is no connection between the cooperation agreed and the class action lawsuit in the USA brought by the American Authors' Guild and the Association of American Publishers against Google (which could be resolved by the so-called "Google Book Settlement"), because that class action concerns exclusively books whose copyright period has not expired. For the agreed collaboration it is essential that the Austrian National Library provides to Google only works for digitisation that are in the public domain.
33. Where can I find more information on the so-called "Google Book Settlement"?
Information on the agreement between Google and the publishers and authors can be found at the following website: http://books.google.com/intl/de/googlebooks/agreement/.
Questions on the project
34. Who is financing the project?
Google meets the costs for digitisation and full text recognition. Google will also carry the costs associated with the digitisation process, such as transport and insurance. The Austrian National Library meets the costs for selecting, preparing and reshelfing the books, which is a large expense in view of the number of volumes involved. As a preliminary contribution the Austrian National Library is providing to Google the metadata (catalogue entries) for all the works to be digitised in the project. The Austrian National Library will also carry the costs for linking the digitised items to its electronic catalogue, integration into its Digital Library, and the long-term preservation of the digitised items.
35. What effect does the project have on other digitisation projects of the Austrian National Library?
The digitisation project with Google will complement the other digitisation projects of the Austrian National Library. Among the major digitisation projects of the Austrian National Library are the digitisation of the historical newspaper holdings (ANNO, http://anno.onb.ac.at/), of the holdings of historical legal texts (ALEX, http://alex.onb.ac.at/), of important parts of the holdings of the Picture Archives and Graphics Department (http://www.onb.ac.at/ev/collections/picturearchive.htm), and of the Department of Papyri and the Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books (http://www.onb.ac.at/ev/collections/had.htm). It is part of the strategic goals of the Austrian National Library to digitise in an extensive manner its diverse collections and make them available online free of charge to users all over the world. The digitisation of the historic book holdings in the project Austrian Books Online will bring the Austrian National Library a major step closer to realising this goal. Of course the digitisation of the other collections of the Austrian National Library will be continued.
36. What is the difference between this project and other digitisation projects of the Austrian National Library?
The project with Google differs from the other digitisation projects in its scale. The goal of Austrian Books Online is the digitisation of the entire historic book holdings. Initially about 600,000 books, that is about 180 million book pages will be digitised.
37. What is the relationship of the cooperation between Google and other Austrian National Library - Digital Library projects?
The Austrian National Library has been working for several years on the development of a digital repository. In 2009 the so-called "legal deposit" was expanded to online publications by an amendment to the Austrian Media Law. The digital archives and the workflows built up in recent years allow to fulfil the new obligations for long-term preservation of those digital publications. In 2009 the Austrian National Library started archiving the Austrian webspace (web archiving). The Austrian National Library is a key partner in several European research projects in the field of digital libraries. For example, in the EU projects PLANETS (http://www.planets-project.eu/) and SCAPE the Austrian National Library works on implenting strategies, services, and tools for digital long-term preservation. In the EU project IMPACT (http://www.impact-project.eu/) new methods for improving full text digitisation (OCR) of historical texts are being developed in the context of mass digitisation projects. The Austrian National Library is coordinating the project EuropeanaConnect (http://www.europeanaconnect.eu/) in which core components for Europeana, the European Digital Library (http://www.europeana.eu/) are being developed. Further information on those projects can be found on the webpages of the Department for Research and Development (http://www.onb.ac.at/ev/about/15099.htm ).
The cooperation with Google is part of the strategy of the Austrian National Library in the area of digital libraries and enables the digitisation of the historic book holdings on a scale impossible otherwise.
38. Where are the books being digitised?
The books are scanned in a Google digitisation centre. Since the start of the library program in 2004 Google has demonstrated its capability to efficiently and safely transport and digitise large quantities of books.
39. Can the Digitisation Centre be visited? How are the books being digitised by Google?
Google's digitisation centres are accessible only to project partners like the Austrian National Library. Google has developed special digitisation technologies and workflows for the project which are not disclosed to the public.
40. How good is the quality of the digitised items?
Google has developed technologies that allow to digitise large amounts of books in a short time and at high quality. The quality criteria for the project Austrian Books Online have been jointly defined by Google and the Austrian National Library and are constantly reviewed and monitored by both partners. The quality of digitised items complies with usual standards for digitisation. In addition, the procedures for production and further processing of the digitised items are continually being improved.
41. How are books chosen for digitisation?
The Austrian National Library plans to digitise its entire historic book holdings in the project Austrian Books Online. A selection of individual sections of the holdings is not intended for cost reasons. In addition, exact criteria are set out in the project plan to decide which books are not to be digitised for conservation reasons.
42. Will particularly valuable books be a part of the project?
Particularly valuable books are currently not being considered for digitisation, but they are not excluded from the project in principle. The project plan sets out exactly which books are to be digitised. The selection of books is carried out in close collaboration with the Institute for Conservation of the Austrian National Library.
43. Could the books be damaged by digitisation?
The processes for transport, storage und digitisation of the books are coordinated with the Institute for Conservation of the Austrian National Library and the Austrian Federal Office for the Protection of Monuments (Bundesdenkmalamt) and regulated by contract. Google uses innovative scan technologies that allow a digitisation which is extremely unharmful to books. This has been proved in past years by projects already running with other libraries. Damage to books through digitisation is smaller than through common use of the volumes by readers. In addition, digitisation makes an important contribution to conservation of books because the valuable originals are not going to be used as often in the future. Also, digitisation is a part of the protection measures for the holdings in case of a disaster.
Very fragile books that could be damaged during transport or digitisation are not a part of the project Austrian Books Online.
44. What happens to the books that have been digitised?
After digitisation the books are reshelfed to their place in the stack rooms of the Austrian National Library and are available to users.
45. If I need a book that is just now being digitised, how long must I wait before I can use it again?
Books that are in the process of digitisation will not be available to users for approximately three months. After digitisation the books are put back in their original place in the stack rooms of the Austrian National Library.
If users find a book in the online catalogue of the Austrian National Library they want to use, which is in the process of being digitised, they can make a reservation. The procedure is the same as reserving a book that is being used by another reader. Users will receive reserved books as soon as the digitisation is completed.
46. Will the Austrian National Library be identifiable as the source of the digitised objects?
The Austrian National Library will be named as the source on the page "About this book", which can be retrieved for every book in Google Books. In addition the Austrian National Library will be identified by its library stamp and a barcode label that are digitised with every book.
47. Will Google advertise in connection with digitised books of the Austrian National Library?
No, for the present there will be no advertising in Google Books in connection with books that have been digitised in the Google Library Program. You can find information on how books from the Library Program are made available at http://books.google.at/googlebooks/library.html.
48. Will the use of books of the Austrian National Library via Google Books in future be subject to utilisation fees?
No, searching for books of the Austrian National Library in Google Books, complete viewing, full text searches, downloading of complete books and use for non-commercial purposes (including publication) will be free of charge in future also. The guarantee of making the digitised items available to end users free of charge was an important precondition for concluding the agreement between Google and the Austrian National Library.
49. Will the project have an effect on how the Austrian National Library will collect and archive printed works in future?
The Austrian National Library entered the project Austrian Books Online to digitise its historic book holdings in order to be able to offer additional services to readers and to significantly improve the accessibility of its book holdings. Its collection policies, arising from its legal mandate and the collection guidelines, are not influenced by the project. Information on the collection guidelines can be found at http://www.onb.ac.at/ev/about/mission.htm.
50. What effect does the project have on the conservation and restoration of the historic book holdings of the Austrian National Library?
The Institute for Conservation of the Austrian National Library is closely linked with the digitisation project with Google. Naturally the program for conserving and restoring the library's book holdings will be continued undiminished after the completion of the digitisation. The project Austrian Books Online will contribute to the protection of the historic book holdings of the Austrian National Library since the original books will not be used as frequently in future as readers can also use the digital copies.
51. How does the Austrian National Library observe security considerations in connection with this project?
The Austrian National Library takes security aspects in digital matters very seriously and has taken measures to protect the data for which it is responsible. The digitised items from the project with Google will be accessible without fees, free for download, storage, print and use for non-commercial purposes (including publication) for users of the Austrian National Library's Digital Library. However technical precautions will be taken to prevent unlimited massive download and automatic access to the data (e.g., through search engines).
52. Can I buy items digitised in this project?
No. Users will be able to download the works from the historic book holdings of the Austrian National Library digitised in this project free of charge by visiting the Austrian National's Digital Library or Google Books. In addition the works will be part of the Google eBooks-service.
53. Where can I find further information on the Google Books project?
Detailed information can be found on the Google Books project on the help pages of Google Books at http://books.google.at/googlebooks/about.html. Google regularly provides information on new developments in its "Inside Booksearch" blog, http://booksearch.blogspot.com/ and in its official Google blog, http://googleblog.blogspot.com/.
Kontakt
Project LeadMax Kaiser
Head of Research and Development
Josefsplatz 1
A-1015 Vienna
(+43-1) 534 10-370
