BL opens up to Microsoft and reveals revenue aims

By inking a digitisation deal with software giant Microsoft, the British Library (BL) is looking to explore commercial opportunities previously unavailable to libraries.

In an exclusive interview with IWR, Alistair Baker, Microsoft’s UK managing director, said both parties were looking to explore new business opportunities.

Under the terms of the agreement Microsoft will digitise 25 million pages of out-of-copyright titles held by the BL, and make them available on the MSN Book Search service to be launched next year ( Click here for details ).

“This is the start of a very long journey; in five years time the things people search for will be very different to today,” said Baker. “The aim of this relationship is long term.”

Baker said there are real commercial possibilities based on the content held within libraries, and especially the British Library , that are not currently understood. “There is a lot of interest in historical artefacts, but to go to the British Library you have to have a real desire to see something. By making those artefacts available online we will broaden the level of interest in them.”

Baker believes that recent largescale adoption of broadband internet connectivity will increase the interest in the BL holdings for research as well as enjoyment. “Bill Gates sees this as a massive opportunity.”

Library digitisation plans by search engine rival Google have been rocked by threats of legal action for copyright infringements. The Association of American Publisher s (AAP) is seeking an injunction against Google for its plans to scan the library collections at the New York Public Library, Oxford University Bodleian Library, and the Stanford, Michigan and Harvard university libraries.

But Microsoft, which is part of the Open Content Alliance ( click here for details ),  plans to avoid similar problems. “One thing we understand better than most is the value of intellectual property [IP],” Baker said. “As our market capital is based on intellectual property we will not infringe someone else’s IP.”