Information age will take a huge leap forward when Google completes the scanning of biblical proprtions according to this article. It is an effort to digitize the entire book collections of the New York Public Library and Harvard University libraries, among others.
The goal of Google Book Search is to make all offline books -- currently invisible to Google's eye -- searchable. This means physically scanning hundreds of millions of pages bound between the covers of an estimated 18 million books, recognizing around 430 languages and all sorts of fonts, making the results available for text searches, and replicating the traditional library browsing experience when it's all done.
A similar but smaller project is the Million Book Project by the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Expectations are that the Million Book Project will accomplish its goal of digitizing one million books by 2007.
As of November 2005 -
Over 600,000 books have been scanned: 170,000 in India, 420,000 in China, and 20,000 in Egypt. Roughly 135,000 of the books are in English; the others are in Indian, Chinese, Arabic, French, or other languages. Most of the books are in the public domain, but permission has been acquired to include over 60,000 copyrighted books (about 53,000 in English and 7,000 in Indian languages).
This mammoth effort is going to create an 'online book lovers paradise.' Greater access to information will truely realize the knowledge economy and bring tremendous benifits to the lower societal levels trapped in poverty. Democracy will take new new meaning when an informed electorate can exercise the peoples will in countries that are struggling to bring about such change.
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