Remember when we told you that the University of Virginia (and the city and county) were keen on bringing Google Fiber to the area for a free trial run? Well, here’s one more perk for UVA students if the deal comes through: faster online reading.
In late 2006, UVA—already swimming in books, with more than 5 million—announced its partnership in the Google Book Library Project. Every book offered at a UVA library would be considered for digitization and availability through Google Books. It took a bit of time for Google to work its way through copyright infringement suits. (UVA Professor of Media Studies Siva Vaidhyanathan, who keeps the Googlization of Everything blog, also weighed in.) But the suit was settled in 2009 and amended last month.
Now, UVA is back in digital books game. Google’s Public Policy blog announced yesterday that UVA was "expanding its partnership with Google," and that, provided the amended settlement goes through, "anyone in the US will be able to find, preview and buy online access to books from U.Va’s library." No more waiting for Joe Freshman to return Brave New World!
