"With today's announcement we are opening our library to the world and bringing the true purpose of libraries - the discovery of books and knowledge – a decisive step further into the digital era. This is an exciting effort to help readers around the world discover and access Germany's rich literary tradition online – whenever and wherever they want."

-Dr. Rolf Griebel, Director General of the Bavarian State Library

Learn more about the Bavarian State Library's involvement in the project [in German].

"Our participation in the Google Books Library Project will add significantly to the extensive digital resources the Libraries already deliver," said James Neal, Columbia's vice president for information services and university librarian. "It will enable the Libraries to make available more significant portions of its extraordinary archival and special collections to scholars and researchers worldwide in ways that will ultimately change the nature of scholarship."

-James Neal, University Librarian and Vice-President for Information Services at Columbia University

Learn more about Columbia's involvement in the project.

"This partnership with Google is one of the most ambitious undertakings in the history of the CIC and sets the stage for a remarkable transformation of library services and information access. We're opening up these resources as both a common good shared among the universities, as well as a public good available more broadly. "

-Barbara McFadden Allen, Director of the CIC

Learn more about the CIC's involvement in the project.

Research libraries today are integral partners in the academic enterprise through their support of research, teaching and learning. They also serve a public good by enhancing access to the works of the world's best minds. As a major research library, Cornell University Library is pleased to join its peer institutions in this partnership with Google. The outcome of this relationship is a significant reduction in the time and effort associated with providing scholarly full-text resources online."

-Interim Cornell University Librarian Anne R. Kenney

Learn more about Cornell University Library's involvement in the project.

The new century presents important new opportunities for libraries, including Harvard's, and for the individuals who use them. The collaboration between major research libraries and Google will create an important public good of benefit to students, teachers, scholars and readers everywhere. The project harnesses the power of the Internet to allow users to identify books of interest with a precision and at a speed previously unimaginable. The user will then be guided to find books in local libraries or to purchase them from publishers and book vendors. And, for books in the public domain, there will be even broader access."

– Sidney Verba, Director of the Harvard University Library

Learn more about Harvard's involvement in the project.

We are thrilled to open our books and our library to the world through this project. This is an exciting effort to help readers - no matter where they are - discover and access part of Belgium and Europe's rich literary tradition and culture. In addition, we are about to start a multi-year project to renovate our library building and, while our library's doors will be closed, its books will remain open to students and academics through Google Books."

– Sylvia Van Peteghem, Chief Librarian, Ghent University Library

Learn more about Ghent University Library's involvement in the project [in Dutch]

The Google project allows us to make our collections visible worldwide, so that our books will contribute to research and education on a global scale. Our university was founded in 1858 by Yukichi Fukuzawa, who was well known for his commitment to bringing information and media forward in modern Japan. This makes Keio ideally suited to be the first Japanese library to participate in Google Books."

- Professor S. Sugiyama, Director, Keio University Library

Learn more about Keio's involvement in the project [in Japanese].

For Gérard COLLOMB, Senator and Mayor of Lyon, "our decision to digitize and make available online part of the Lyon Municipal Library's collection allows us to open our library doors to the rest of the world. Digitization, combined with the increased usage of the Internet now allows to preserve collections - with digital copies - while also opening up the possibility for users to access and consult books from a distance""

-Gérard COLLOMB, Senator and Mayor of Lyon

Learn more about the Lyon Municipal Library's involvement in the project

It once was the case that only those who could visit our library were able to 'visit' our books. Now, anyone interested in the vast number of titles our library houses will be able to find and access them online – or perhaps just discover them by chance via a simple search of the Google Books index. This is a tremendous step forward for enabling readers all around the world to discover and access the rich history of Catalonian, Castilian and Latin American literature."

– Dolors Lamarca, Director of the National Library of Barcelona

Learn more about The National Library of Catalonia's involvement in the project [in Catalan].

The New York Public Library Research Libraries were struck by the convergence of Google's mission with their own. We see the digitisation project as a transformational moment in the access to information and wanted not only to learn from it but also to influence it. Our response at present is a conservative one, with a limited number of volumes in excellent condition, in selected languages and in the public domain. With appropriate evaluation of this limited participation, we look forward to a more expansive collaboration in the future."

– David Ferriero, Andrew W. Mellon Director and Chief Executive of the Research Libraries, The New York Public Library

Learn more about The New York Public Library's involvement in the project.

The Bodleian Library's mission, from its founding in 1602, has been based on Sir Thomas Bodley's vision of a library serving the worldwide 'Republic of Letters', with the Library's collections open to all who have need to use them. To this day over 60% of readers who use and work in the Bodleian Library have no direct affiliation with the University of Oxford . The Google Library Project in Oxford testifies to our ongoing commitment to enable and facilitate access to our content for the scholarly community and beyond. The initiative will carry forward Sir Thomas Bodley's vision and the ethos of the Bodleian Library into the digital age, allowing readers from around the world to access the Library's collections over the World Wide Web."

– Ronald Milne, Acting Director of Oxford University Library & Bodley's Librarian

Learn more about Oxford's involvement in the project.

Generations of Princeton librarians have devoted themselves to building a remarkable collection of books in thousands of subjects and dozens of languages. Having the portion of that collection not covered by copyright available online will make it easier for Princeton students and faculty to do research and joining the Google partnership allows us to share our collection with researchers worldwide, a step very much in keeping with the University's unofficial motto of Princeton in the nation's service and in the service of all nations."

– Karin Trainer, Princeton University Librarian

Learn more about Princeton University Library's involvement in the project.

Stanford has been digitising texts for years now to make them more accessible and searchable, but with books, as opposed to journals, such efforts have been severely limited in scope for both technical and financial reasons. The Google arrangement catapults our effective digital output from the boutique scale to the truly industrial. Through this programme and others like it, Stanford intends to promote learning and stimulate innovation."

– Michael A. Keller, University Librarian

Learn more about Stanford's involvement in the project.

By unlocking the wealth of information maintained within our libraries and exposing it to the latest that search technologies have to offer, the University of California is continuing its work to harness technology and our library collections in support of research, learning, patient care and cultural engagement. In this new world, people will make connections between information and ideas that were hitherto inaccessible, driving the pace of innovation in all areas of life – academic, economic, and civic – and enhancing the use of the world's great libraries.

With digital copies of our library holdings, we will also provide a safeguard for the countless thousands of authors, publishers and readers who would be devastated by catastrophic loss occasioned, for example, by natural disaster. Anyone who doubts the impact that such disaster can have on our cultural memory need look no further than the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina on our sister libraries in the Gulf States.

As an institution that has built these vast collections as a public good and in the public trust, joining the Google library partnership was the right thing to do."

– Daniel Greenstein, Associate Vice Provost for Scholarly Information and University Librarian

Learn more about University of California's involvement in the project.

Out-of-copyright books previously only available to people with access to the University Complutense of Madrid's Library or the money to travel will now be accessible to everyone with an Internet connection, wherever they live. We are quite literally opening our library to the world. The opportunities for education are phenomenal and we are delighted to be working with Google on this project."

– Carlos Berzosa, Chancellor

Learn more about Complutense University of Madrid's involvement in the project [in Spanish].

"Out of copyright books previously only available to people with access to Lausanne's university library will now be accessible to everyone with an Internet connection, wherever they live. We are quite literally opening our library to the world. The opportunities for education are phenomenal and we are delighted to be working with Google on this project".

-Hubert A. Villard, Director of the Cantonal and University Library of Lausanne.

Learn more about the University Library of Lausanne's involvement in the project [in French].

The project with Google is core to our mission as a great public university to advance knowledge — on campus and beyond. By joining this partnership that makes our library holdings searchable through Google, UM serves as an agent in an initiative that radically increases the availability of information to the public. The University of Michigan embraces this project as a means to make information available as broadly and conveniently as possible. Moreover, the UM Library embarked on this ground-breaking partnership for a number of very compelling reasons:

• We believe that, beyond providing basic access to library collections, this activity is critically transformative, enabling the University Library to build on and reconceive vital library services for the new millennium.
• This work will create new ways for users to search and access library content, opening up our collections to our own users and to users throughout the world.
• Although we have engaged in large-scale, preservation-based conversion of materials in the Library's collection for several years, and have been a leader in digital preservation efforts among research libraries, we know that only through partnerships of this sort can conversion of this scale be achieved. Our program is strong, and we have been able to digitise approximately 5,000 volumes/year; nevertheless, at this rate, it would take us more than a thousand years to digitise our entire collection."

– John P. Wilkin, Associate University Librarian

Learn more about University of Michigan's involvement in the project.

University libraries in our society are entrusted with the critical mission of collecting and providing access to information spanning the entire range of human knowledge. Our libraries are also responsible for effectively preserving this knowledge and ensuring access to it over vast periods of time. At the University of Texas at Austin, we hold a deep commitment to each of these objectives and believe that participating in this venture will help ensure our ability to meet those commitments far into the future."

– Fred Heath, Vice Provost and Director of Libraries

Learn more about University of Texas at Austin's involvement in the project.

The U.Va. Library was a pioneer in digitising public domain materials. We started with printed texts in 1992, and faculty and students quickly discovered that long-forgotten and out-of-print texts could reach new audiences and spark new scholarship. We have often talked about libraries without walls, but now we are even closer to realising that vision, thanks to this partnership."

– Karin Wittenborg, University Librarian, University of Virginia

Learn more about University of Virginia's involvement in the project.

The combined library collections of the University of Wisconsin - Madison Libraries and the Wisconsin Historical Society Library comprise one of the largest collections of documents and historical materials in the United States. Through this landmark partnership with Google, Wisconsin is taking a leading role in preserving public domain works for future generations and making the Library's resources widely available for education and research. This effort truly exemplifies the vision of The Wisconsin Idea -- the notion that the boundaries of the university are limitless. The Wisconsin libraries have been following in this tradition. The Google digitisation efforts will enable the libraries to expand access to public domain materials that have previously only been accessible in the libraries. Much of this material is rare and one-of-a-kind, providing a rich, open source of information for educational, research and general public use."

– Edward Van Gemert, Interim Director, UW-Madison Libraries

Learn more about UW-Madison's involvement in the project.