It’s official: as of yesterday, The UMN Libraries have joined the Google Book Search Project.

The University of Minnesota and 11 other Midwest universities in the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) have entered into a groundbreaking collective agreement with Google to digitize up to 10 million bound volumes, nearly doubling the number of universities participating in the Google Book Search Project. ...

The contract between Google and the CIC institutions is for six years with an option to renew. Google will fund digitization of up to 10 million volumes in CIC library collections. In turn, each CIC institution will support the costs of retrieving and preparing the books for digitization. The University of Minnesota will contribute up to one million volumes from its University Libraries collections. Prior to the Google Book Library initiative, libraries estimated the costs of digitization at approximately $60 per volume, according to the CIC. Hence, the value of this project to the University of Minnesota could reach $60 million.

It’s been so encouraging to watch this effort continue to grow so much in the short time since I briefed it for CCCC. At a certain point, the momentum and value become unavoidable, even for a suit as large as Authors Guild v Google.