The National Academies has announced the completion of the first phase of a partnership with internet search services provider Google, US. The deal is to digitise the library's collection of reports from 1863 to 1997, making them available - free, searchable, and in full text - through Google Book Search. The Academies plan to have their entire collection of nearly 11,000 reports digitised by 2011.
Notable reports from the library's archives that are now available include Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 1 (1863-1894); Investigation of the Scientific and Economic Relations of the Sorghum Sugar Industry (1882); Proposed U.S. Program for the International Geophysical Year, 1957-1958; and The Polar Regions and Climatic Change (1984).
Prior to this project, the Academies digitised more than 4,000 books and made them available online through the National Academies Press; most of those can also be found in Google Book Search. However, researchers who needed to gain access to hard copies of older reports, part of a legacy collection in the library, could not always find what they wanted. These older reports have been digitised and are now accessible through Google. The Academies hope that wider availability of its reports will be of use to scientists in developing countries, who often rely on the Internet to gather information.
The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. They are private, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under a congressional charter. The Research Council is the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.
