Universal Digital Library reaches 1.5 million books mark

The Universal Digital Library, a book-scanning project backed by several major libraries around the world, has completed the digitization of 1.5 million books and on Tuesday (November 27, 2007) made them free and publically available. The online library offers full text downloads of works that are in the public domain, or for which the copyright holder has been given permission to make available. Having the backing of prominent institutions such as the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt, however, the collection goes far beyond the widely available classics. “You’re not going to find over 900,000 works in Chinese on Google,” said Michael Shamos, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University and director of intellectual property for the Universal Digital Library (UDL). Read more about it at CNET News.com.