From madhuresh_s@aurigene.com Sun Jan  2 14:21:36 2005
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:36:28 +0530
From: Madhuresh 
To: lis-forum@ncsi.iisc.ac.in, nmlis@yahoogroups.com,
     india-lis@infoserv.inist.fr
Subject: [LIS-Forum] Internet Archive to build alternative to Google

Dear Friends,

This announcement didn't get much attention in comparison to Google's
announcement. Internet Archive is hosting the digitized book collections
of 10 International libraries including the library of Indian Institute
of Science, Bangalore. See below news item taken from
http://www.iwr.co.uk/IWR/1160176 

			Internet Archive to build alternative to Google

Ten international libraries agree to add digitised book collections to
not-for-profit Internet Archive's new Text Archive project 

By Mark Chillingworth [21-12-2004]

Ten major international libraries have agreed to combine their digitised
book collections into a free text-based archive hosted online by the
not-for-profit Internet Archive. All content digitised and held in the
text archive will be freely available to online users. 

Two major US libraries have agreed to join the scheme: Carnegie Mellon
University library and The Library of Congress have committed their
Million Book Project and American Memory Projects, respectively, to the
text archive. The projects both provide access to digitised collections.


The Canadian universities of Toronto, Ottawa and McMaster have agreed to
add their collections, as have China's Zhejiang University, the Indian
Institute of Science, the European Archives and Bibliotheca Alexandrina
in Egypt. 
In a statement, the Internet Archive describes the Text Archive as an
Open Access archive that will "ensure permanent and public access to our
published heritage". Over a million books have been committed to the
Text Archive by the member institutes, with 50,000 available in the
first quarter of 2005. 

The San Francisco-based Internet Archive was founded in 1996 to build a
library for the internet that offered access to historical collections.
It's most well-known online project is the Wayback Machine, which
harvests snapshots of freely-available websites. 

Announced 24 hours after Google's tie-up with the university libraries
of Oxford, Stanford, Michigan and Harvard, and the New York Public
Library, the Internet Archive project is likely to be seen as the first
of many alternatives to the Google Print library. 

Internet Archive said: "Commercial companies are currently working with
libraries to digitise materials as well. We are encouraging these
efforts and hope most of these materials will also be available through
Text Archives." 


Madhuresh Singhal
Aurigene Discovery Technologies Limited,
Electronic City, phase II, Hosur Road,
Bangalore 560100
Phone 28521314-16 Ext.- 422
Mobile 98861 82822
E-mail: madhureshsinghal@yahoo.com
http://nettalk2.tripod.com/



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