British Library and Google to Digitise 250,000 Books Published between 1700 and 1870

The British Library and Google today announced a partnership to digitise 250,000 out-of-copyright books from the Library’s collections.

The project will digitise a huge range of printed books, pamphlets and periodicals dated 1700 to 1870, the period that saw the Act of Union, Industrial Revolution, Poor Law reform, the development of local authorities, Robert Burns and other major poets, the Battle of Waterloo, the British victory at Trafalgar, the development of railways. It's not just books in English and the books will feature searchable text and will be downloadable through Google Books.

The press release says that researchers will be able to copy, share and manipulate text for non-commercial purposes.

See the press release for more details.