Digital Libraries: 17-19cc. books of French-speaking Switzerland digitized

5 January 2010
Source: Swissinfo.ch

Readers worldwide now have access to more than 100,000 works belonging to the cantonal university library in Lausanne (Switzerland) without moving from their computers. The library announced that the internet giant Google had completed the scanning of all the works held in the library which were published before 1870, and are thus copyright free.

It is the fifth European library to be scanned by Google, and the first in a French-speaking area. Scanning only started just over two years ago.

The books involved are in several languages, and cover subjects ranging from mathematics to history, with a strong focus on the literature of French-speaking Switzerland from the 17th to 19th centuries.

The works can be accessed via Google Books.