Microsoft to digitise British Library

Microsoft announced on Friday that it is teaming up with the British Library to digitise 25 million pages of content for its MSN Book Search.

Microsoft's partnership with the British Library, which expands its efforts to digitise books and make them searchable, comes at time when the number of competitors and controversy over bringing books online is on the rise.

Google, for example, reiterated on Thursday that it plans to resume its controversial practice of digitising copyright books, requiring those who oppose to opt out of the programme. Also on Thursday, Amazon.com and Random House announced separate plans to digitise books and sell access to the content.

Meanwhile, Microsoft, Yahoo, the Internet Archive and others have joined the Open Content Alliance project that is designed to digitise books and archives around the world, and to allow them to be searchable with any search engine. The Open Content Alliance plans to digitise only those works in the public domain, or whose author has given permission to scan in the work.

Microsoft's partnership with the British Library calls for digitising approximately 100,000 books next year. The books, which have expired copyright protection, will be digitised and searchable through the new MSN Book Search service. A public beta of the service is expected to be offered sometime next year.

"This partnership helps us fulfill our vision of promoting ready access to our collection for everyone who wants to use it. This is great news for research and scholarship, and will give unparalleled access to our vast collections to people all over the world," Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library, said in a statement.

Microsoft is also working with the British Library to build its digital object management system, which is designed to enable long-term storage, access and preservation of digitised works such as e-journals, e-books and CD-ROMs. Microsoft is providing advice, software tools and technical support to the development of the library's National Digital Library.