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The Italian government has signed a deal with Google to scan up to a million books from the national libraries in Rome and Florence, reports the AFP.
The internet giant is to set up a scanning centre in Italy employing 100 people, and will “cover the costs” of scanning the titles. Works scanned will be out-of-copyright titles predating 1868, including works by Italian physicist Galileo Galilei and German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler.
Google will also provide the libraries with digital copies of the books for their own websites.
It is Google's first agreement with a national government's culture ministry, although it has previously entered into similar agreements with Oxford University and Columbia in New York, plus public libraries in Bavaria, New York and and Lyon.
"It's a partnership that opens a new road for Italian culture," said Italian culture minister Sandro Bondi. He added that the agreement does not mean the libraries are bound to give access only to Google. Mario Resca, an official at the Italian culture ministry, estimated that the project would cost E100m, but Nikesh Arora, Google head of global sales operations, said the company expected to spend "a lot, lot, lot, lot, less," without stating a precise figure.
Google has recently run into trouble in France where it is appealing a court decision ordering it to halt scanning French titles without the publishers' permission. The amended Google Settlement deal in the US also continues to attract opposition.