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Wisconsin
Google took another step toward the company's stated
goal of indexing the world's information by adding the entire collection of
public domain historical resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and
the Wisconsin Historical Society Library to its Google Books Library Project.
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Editor's Note: Both of my parents are/were educators, so it's really quite cool
that Google does so much for the industry. Both parents are/were also history
teachers, so when the company announced that the entire public domain document
and book collection of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Wisconsin
Historical Society Library would be added to the Google Books index, it was kind
of exciting. Do you share in this excitment? Let us know at WebProWorld.
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The company says that the UW-Madison/WHS historical document and book
collection, at 7.2 million holdings, is one of the largest collections in the
United States, ranked 11th in North America.
The university adds its resources to an impressive list of other project
partners that includes the University of California, University of Michigan,
Harvard University, Stanford University, the New York Public Library, Oxford
University and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
"Wisconsin is in a position to take a leading role in making the primary
documents of U. S. government history freely accessible on the Internet for
anyone to find and use," says UW-Madison Provost Patrick Farrell.
For books protected by copyright, users just get basic background (such as the
book's title and the author's name), at most a few lines of text related to
their search, and information about where they can buy or borrow a book. If
publishers or authors don't want to have their books digitized, they will be
excluded.
Google, run by a team steeped in academia, has been very proactive in promoting
educational causes as part of its overall strategy.
The company also recently launched Google Apps for Education, introducing
applications for communication, collaboration and search for educational
institutions.
The applications will be previewed the Educause tradeshow in Dallas, Texas. The
company also plans to release a set of beta APIs for organizations that want
integrate directories, single-sign-on systems, and mail gateways with Google
Apps for Education.
Arizona State University has already integrated the APIs into their system.
In this flurry of educational announcements, Google Enterprise also revealed
that Blackboard will be the first Google Enterprise Professional partner to
focus primarily on the education market.
Blackboard will focus on helping schools integrate Google enterprise search
technology for schools, as well as integrating the Blackboard Learning System
with Google Scholar.
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