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THE PROJECT

What is the Cornell/Microsoft project?*

Cornell University Library has entered into a partnership with Microsoft to digitize a significant number of books and to put the volumes online using the Microsoft Live Book Search service.  The initiative focuses on works already in the public domain and will allow students, researchers, and scholars around the world online access to books from Cornell's outstanding collections.  The project supports the library's long-standing commitment to make its collections broadly available and Cornell President David Skorton's goal to increase the impact of the university beyond campus boundaries.

Why is Cornell collaborating with Microsoft?

The Cornell-Microsoft partnership is a win-win situation for Cornell. By working with Microsoft, we participate in content selection decisions to ensure that scholarlymaterials that support Cornell's academic programs are available in digital form. Microsoft will give the Library high-quality digital images of all the materials, allowing the Library to provide worldwide access through its own digital library and to share the content with non-commercial academic initiatives and non-profit organizations. Lastly, the agreement with Microsoft is non-exclusive and the Library is free to join other partnerships with the same or different content in digitizing its collection.

Who is doing the digitizing?   Where is it being done?

Cornell and Microsoft will be teaming with Kirtas Technologies in Victor,N.Y. to digitize the materials for Live Book Search.  Kirtas is a recognized pioneer of revolutionary scanning solutions that enable high-quality, non-destructive bound document digitization at up to 2,400 pages per hour.  The majority of the material will be transported to Victor for digitization, and a small portion of rare and fragile material will be scanned onsite at Cornell using a Kirtas scanning machine.

Will books be damaged or destroyed during this process?

No.  The scanning vendor for this project uses a digitization process that does not damage the book.   A bound book is placed in a book cradle, which allows the book to be digitized without damaging the spine.  Pages are digitized by overhead digital cameras, leaving the books intact.  A mechanical arm then turns the pages as they are digitized (this process is probably more gentle than turning pages by human hand).  We expect all our books to be returned to the shelves in the same condition they were in before scanning. 

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