Madrid's Complutense University opens its library to the world

Tuesday, September 26, 2006 at 7:14 AM

Posted by Jens Redmer, Head of Google Book Search, Europe

Out-of-copyright books previously only available to people with access to Madrid’s Complutense University Library, or the money to travel, will now be accessible to everyone with an Internet connection, wherever they live. We are quite literally opening our library to the world. - Carlos Berzosa Alonso-Martínez, Chancellor of the Complutense University of Madrid

Browsing the library stacks at the University Complutense of Madrid is like taking a trip through the great moments of Spanish and Latin American literature: Miguel de Cervantes, Quevedo, Calderón, Sor Juana de la Cruz, Garcilaso de la Vega.

Those authors’ great works soon will be accessible to everyone around the world, as the University Complutense of Madrid -- the largest university library in Spain -- becomes the first Spanish-language library and the second European library to join the Google Books Library Project. This partnership will further enrich Book Search’s multilingual collection of public domain works. In addition to Spanish texts, the university’s collection also includes French, German, Latin, Italian, and English works.

We're honored to be working with the University Complutense of Madrid -- we've been helping people find information for eight years; they have centuries of experience educating people from all over the world. We're looking forward to learning a lot from them.