French national library negotiates with Google on digitization

PARIS, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) -- The National Library of France has started negotiations with Google Inc. concerning a cooperative effort to digitize the institution's holdings, local media reported Tuesday.

"Our negotiations with Google will go on for a few months," said Denis Bruckmann, deputy director of collections of the library.

Google in 2004 launched Google Print, a project to create digital scans of the collections of university and research libraries.

Previously opposed to Google's ambitions, the French library changed its position due to the high costs of completing the digitization task alone.

The National Library of France, located in Paris, was founded in 1368. Designed to be the repository of all that published in France, the library currenty has a total collection of about 30 million items, including 13 million books and publications.