250,000 Of The British Library's Books Will Be Digitized By Google

250,000 of the British Library's out-of-copyright books from 1700 to 1870 will be digitized by Google. The project will include material in a variety of major European languages, and will focus on books that are not yet freely available in digital form online.

The books to be digitized will range from the French Revolution to the end of slavery including the French and Industrial Revolutions, The Battle of Trafalgar, the Crimean War, the invention of rail travel and of the telegraph.

Researchers, students and other readers of the Library will be able to view historical items from anywhere in the world, to copy, share and manipulate text for non-commercial purposes.

The first works to be digitized will include "Les droits de la femme. A la reine" (The Rights of Women. To the Queen) by Olympe de Gouges (1791) - pamphlets about Queen Marie-Antoinette; "Proyecto de navegación submarina" (A Scheme for Underwater Seafaring: the Ichthyneus or Fish-Boat) by Narcíso Monturiol (1858) - the invention of the first combustion engine-driven submarine, etc.