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From today's Library Journal Academic Newswire:<br><br>
<b>European Digital Effort Goes Live, While Google Print Hits a Snag</b>
<br><br>
After a seven month beta period,
<a href="http://www.TheEuropeanLibrary.org">the European Library</a> this
week officially launched version 1.1 offering 113 searchable collections
across 12 libraries, with access to a further 30 as hyperlinks. According
to European Library spokesperson Jill Cousins, searches can be launched
across geographical borders, and access offered to collections that
cannot be crawled and indexed by the big search engines. More national
libraries will enter the program in 2006, Cousins said, adding that by
the end of 2006 there will be at least 23 libraries and more than 200
searchable collections online. The collections are accessible via a
"very simple, very cheap portal in the browser technology,"
which is available for free. Meanwhile, copyright laws in Europe appear
to make a Google library scan plan in Europe a non-starter. According to
a report in Search Engine Watch, Google officials agreed that the
American fair use provision under which it claims the right to scan
library books for indexing purposes does not exist in Europe. <br><br>
-Sue<br><br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
Suzanne Lorimer<br>
Coordinator of Research Services<br>
Research Services and Collections Department<br>
226 Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University<br>
P.O. Box 208240<br>
130 Wall Street<br>
New Haven, CT 06520-8240<br>
(phone) 203-432-8371 (fax) 203-432-8527<br>
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