More than 10,000 Norwegian books will soon be digitized, move online, and be freely accessible at least to Norwegians.
On the World Book and Copyright Day, Kopinor and the National Library of Norway signed a contract regarding a pilot project for digital books on the Internet. Through the project, called Bokhylla.no (’Bookshelf’), the library will make all Norwegian books from the 1790s, 1890s and 1990s available on the Internet. All titles from the 1990s and some titles from the 1890s – together approx. 50.000 books – are under copyright. These books will not be prepared for print or download, but will be made available to Norwegian IP-addresses. The licensing agreement will be supported by the Extended Collective License. The Bookshelf project will be launched in May, with 10.000 books under copyright. More books will be introduced in 2009–10, and the project will continue until the end of 2011.
Read the entire article here.