Online Libraries make their own Database

Nothing lasts for ever! And that’s what the libraries participating in “Google Books Library Project” have to say about Google. The libraries who are part of Google’s project to digitalize and make available books online have also started their own database trust called HathiTrust to backup all their information. And their claim? “What if Google goes out of business?”

This sounds interesting and some may call funny. Are you kidding? How will Google ever go out of business? If it does, then internet would become a standstill! If you are the one to ask these questions, you might have to recall where Yahoo was few years back and where it is now. Now does it make sense?

Backup is always good and that’s what these librarians have decided. Paul Courant, librarian and dean of libraries at the University of Michigan stated to Bits that, “Google could last 50 years, 100 years, 1000 years,” and added, “We are academic institutions with a commitment to the preservation and use of scholarship and the scholarship record for the indefinite future.”

There are already 25 libraries participating in the Hathi Trust. Hathi Trust would not just have a backup of the books but also plans to have some additional materials digitalized through various methods. The current participants include:

1. California Digital Library
2. Indiana University
3. Michigan State University
4. Northwestern University
5. The Ohio State University
6. Penn State University
7. Purdue University
8. University of California Berkeley
9. University of California Davis
10. University of California Irvine
11. University of California Los Angeles
12. University of California Merced
13. University of California Riverside
14. University of California San Diego
15. University of California San Francisco
16. University of California Santa Barbara
17. University of California Santa Cruz
18. The University of Chicago
19. University of Illinois
20. University of Illinois at Chicago
21. The University of Iowa
22. University of Michigan
23. University of Minnesota
24. University of Wisconsin-Madison
25. University of Virginia