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From the KB (Koninklijke Bibliotheek - National Library of the Netherlands) website:

More than 160.000 public domain books from the 18th and 19th centuries to be scanned and made freely available to public via Google Books, KB websites and Europeana.

Bas Savenije, director general of the KB, national library of the Netherlands and Philippe Colombet, European Strategic Partnerships Manager at Google, signed an agreement today under which Google will digitise more than 160.000 out-of-copyright (public domain) books from the library's collection. The books will be fully searchable and accessible for free via Google Books, via the various KB websites and - at a later date - via the European Union's Europeana portal.

The books to be scanned constitute the majority of the library's public domain collection, and form an important addition to the corpus of public domain books that has already been digitised and made searchable in Google Books. The collection includes a wide range of historical, legal and social works published in the Netherlands during the 18th and 19th centuries and will be of great interest to scholars and researchers in the Dutch-speaking world and around the globe.

Earlier this year, the KB announced its ambition to digitise all Dutch books, newspapers and periodicals from 1470 onwards. The agreement between the KB and Google is part of the KB's strategy to realise this ambition, and complements the library's own digitisation initiatives. The KB's agreement with Google follows on the heels of similar digitisation partnerships between Google and institutions including Harvard University, Oxford University's Bodleian Library, the Italian Ministry of Culture and the National Libraries of Italy in Rome and Florence and the Austrian National Library.

For the full article and more information please visit the KB news archive.