Google146;s database now has library text

Google has said that it had completed the first major expansion of its Google print database of searchable books, adding the full text of more than 10,000 works that are no longer under copyright, culled from the collections of four major research libraries.

The new material includes works of literature, like Transatlantic sketches and other works by Henry James, from Harvard; government documents, like the collected appropriations bills passed by the 50th Congress in 1888 and 1889, from Stanford; history, like the 1903 work, The seventh regiment Rhode island volunteers in the civil War, by William P. Hopkins, from Michigan; and biographies, like the New York Public Library8217;s collection of the annual publication, The Wealth and Biography of the Wealthy Citizens of the City of New York.

It is the first large group of material to be made available electronically from these libraries, which along with Oxford University contracted with Google last year to let the company scan and make searchable the contents of much or all of their collections. 8212; NYT