...from:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/technology/14google.html? oref=login&th

Google Is Adding Major Libraries to Its Database By JOHN MARKOFF and EDWARD WYATT

Published: December 14, 2004

[...]

It may be only a step on a long road toward the long-predicted global virtual library. But the collaboration of Google and research institutions that also include Oxford, Harvard, the University of Michigan, Stanford and the New York Public Library is a major stride in an ambitious Internet effort by various parties. The goal is to expand the Web beyond its current valuable, if eclectic, body of material and create a digital card catalog and searchable library for the world's books, scholarly papers and special collections.

[...]