Michigan Digitization Project

The Michigan Digitization Project is a project in partnership with Google Books to digitize the entire print collection of the University of Michigan Library. The digitized collection is available through the University of Michigan Library catalog, Mirlyn, the HathiTrust Digital Library, and Google Books. Full-text of works that are out of copyright or in the public domain are available.[1][2][3]

According to the University of Michigan Library, they embarked on this partnership for a number of reasons:

  • The project will create new ways for users to search and access Library content, opening up our library collections to our own users and to users throughout the world
  • Although we have engaged in large-scale (preservation-based) conversion of parts of the Library's collection for several years, we know that only through partnerships of this sort can something of this scale be achieved
  • We believe that, beyond providing basic access to Library collections, this activity is critically transformative, enabling the University Library to build on and reconceive vital Library services for the new millennium.[4]

The project has received academic[5][6][7][8][9][10] and media attention.[11][12][13][14]

In February 2008, the University of Michigan announced that over 1 million books from the University Library have been digitized.[15] In September 2008, the University of Michigan announced the establishment of HathiTrust, a multi-institutional digital repository.[16]

  1. ^ Carlson Scott and Jeffrey R. Young. "Google Will Digitize and Search Millions of Books From 5 Leading Research Libraries," The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 14, 2004.
  2. ^ Carnevale, Dan. "U. of Michigan Unveils Its Book-Scanning Contract With Google," The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 20, 2005
  3. ^ Foster, Andrea L. "U. of Michigan president Defends Library's Role in Controversial Google Scanning Project," The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 7, 2006
  4. ^ Michigan Digitization Project Archived April 15, 2008, at the Wayback Machine About page
  5. ^ Young, Jeffrey R. "U. of Michigan Adds Books Digitized by Google to Online Catalog, but Limits Use of Some," The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 31, 2006.
  6. ^ Vaidhyanathan, Siva (December 2, 2006). "A Risky Gamble with Google". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved July 23, 2013.
  7. ^ Vaidhyanathan, Siva (September–October 2006). "Copyright Jungle". Columbia Journalism Review. 45 (5): 42. Archived from the original on March 29, 2007. Retrieved April 19, 2022.
  8. ^ Tennant, Roy. "Mass Digitization," Library Journal, October 15, 2006 Archived January 20, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
  9. ^ Courant, Paul. "On being in bed with Google," http://paulcourant.net/2007/11/04/on-being-in-bed-with-google/
  10. ^ Wong, Wylie. "Digital Libraries: Turning to the Same Page." EdTech: Focus on Higher Education, Nov/Dec 2007 Archived July 10, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ Vaidhyanathan, Siva. "Steal This Book." Interview on On the Media, NPR, September 30, 2005. NPR Archived September 30, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  12. ^ Walker, Leslie. "Google's Goal: A Worldwide Web of Books," Washington Post, May 18, 2006; Page D01.
  13. ^ Toobin, Jeffrey. "Google's Moon Shot: The quest for the universal library," The New Yorker, February 5, 2007
  14. ^ "Google to scan famous libraries," BBC News, December 14, 2004
  15. ^ "One Million Digitized Books | MLibrary". Archived from the original on March 18, 2010. Retrieved September 22, 2014.
  16. ^ "MBooks is now HathiTrust -- [BLT] Blog for Library Technology". Archived from the original on February 26, 2009. Retrieved September 22, 2014.