The University of Virginia Library System announced yesterday that it is joining the Google Books library project, making the University's substantial collections available to students around the world.
By working with Google Book Search, the University will join the likes of Harvard and Oxford in making its resources available over the Internet.
"Our goal is to help to connect users to more books and to help users to discover books that they would never have known existed," Google spokesperson Megan Lamb said. "It made a lot of sense for us, and we're thrilled to be working with U.Va."
The University has pioneered the process of digitizing collections -- it was one of the first schools in the country to digitize its 18th and 19th century books and manuscripts. This partnership is a huge step forward in effort to make these materials more accessible, according to University librarian Karin Wittenborg.
"We've been [digitizing collections] since 1992, and we've done tens of thousands of volumes, but we're going to hundreds of thousands," she said.
The shift to digital libraries is changing the shape of academic scholarship and the way students do research, according to Wittenborg and Robertson Professor of Media Studies Johanna Drucker.
"The future of scholarship is going to be a lot more imaginative," Drucker said. "I think its going to open up a lot of really interesting opportunities."
The University's electronic collections have already helped students conduct new research. One graduate student in particular was able to attribute a book written under a pseudonym to a well-known author by performing a search of the database, Wittenborg noted.
"This is another sign that our entire cultural legacy is migrating into digital form," Drucker said. "I think that students will be increasingly aware of the extent to which digital media are shaping the things we have access to."
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