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World’s Largest Oceanography Library Goes Digital

Approximately 100,000 volumes from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Library, the world's largest oceanography library, have been digitized and are being made publicly accessible (at http://books.google.com) as part of a partnership between Google, the University of California and the UC San Diego Libraries.

In 2008, UC San Diego became the first southern California university to partner with Google in its efforts to digitize the holdings of the world's most prominent libraries. Since then, approximately 300,000 volumes and other materials have been digitized from UCSD's International Relations & Pacific Studies Library, the East Asian Language Collection, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Library. The University of California was an early partner with Google, joining the Google Book Search Project in 2006 and agreeing to provide several million books from UC libraries for digitization. To date, more than 2 million books from UC libraries have been digitized.

According to Peter Brueggeman, director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Library, the materials digitized by Google include a wealth of books and journals, as well as numerous scientific expedition reports. The Scripps Library's collections cover subjects ranging from oceanography, marine biology, marine geology, marine technology, climate science, and geophysics, with extensive resources in ecology, zoology, fisheries, and seismology.

As part of the agreement with Google, the University of California is receiving digital copies of all books and other materials scanned from the UC libraries. The university's copies are stored in HathiTrust, a shared digital repository developed in partnership with other major research institutions across the country.

The digitized books from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Library and other materials from the UCSD Libraries are accessible via the Google Book Search index. The search engine allows anyone to search the full text of books from libraries and publishing partners. For books in the public domain, readers will be able to view, browse, and read the full texts online. For books protected by copyright, users can access basic background (such as the book's title and the author's name), a few lines of text related to their search, and information about where they can borrow or buy a book.

Source: UCSanDiego News