The
idea of Google Books was first conceived in 2002 when a small group of
Google programmers started pondering the question of how many man hours
it would take to scan every single book ever written. We still don’t
know the true answer to this question although just eight years from the
idea conception there are now over 10 million books catalogued in their
database.
While the first scan was done manually on a 300 page
book and took 40 minutes to process, Google now use cameras capable of
scanning at a rate of 1,000 pages an hour and also work with 20,000
publisher partners who provide content directly. They have also been
able to provide over 1 million books that can be read in full from cover
to cover; these unrestricted works are either books that have fallen out
of copyright or have been provided with publishers express permission.
Everything Blog
banner
