During the time I worked for Infosys Technologies, I was able to explore the city of Mysore for about 5 months. One regret I have is actually not checking out the University resources in the city.
I spent more time appreciating the nightlife in Bangalore and checking out the beaches in Goa. Now I hear that Google is interested in University of Mysore’s resources. Specifically, Google will be scanning 800,000 manuscripts from the University.
“Written in both papers and palm leaves, there are around 100,000 manuscripts in our library, some dating back to the eighth century,” stated J Shashidhara Prasad, the vice chancellor of Mysore. “The effort is to restore and preserve this cultural heritage for effective dissemination of knowledge.” The University of Mysore will patent the documents before they are made public.
In America, Google is already scanning books at the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin, Princeton University, Harvard University, Stanford University, the University of Texas at Austin, University of Virginia. Google is also scanning books in Spain, the U.K., and Germany.
The company has also opened a billion-dollar facility in Andhra Pradesh, India and is now providing news content in the Hindi language. This effort further epitomizes the initiative Google has in establishing themselves in India.
Source: Ars Technica
