Google Creating Grants to Study Digital Books

The details are still hazy. But we know this: Google will be launch­ing a “col­lab­o­ra­tive research pro­gram to explore the dig­i­tal human­i­ties” using Google Books. Schol­ars will get up to $50,000 per year, and they’ll come from eight poten­tial dis­ci­plines (archae­ol­o­gy, his­to­ry, anthro­pol­o­gy, lin­guis­tics, lit­er­a­ture, clas­sics, phi­los­o­phy & soci­ol­o­gy). And what’s the point of their research? Essen­tial­ly to make Google’s online dig­i­tal library more effec­tive  and friend­ly for researchers. Just last year, a promi­nent aca­d­e­m­ic called Google Books a “Dis­as­ter for Schol­ars” in a high pro­file forum. The new grants should begin to address these con­cerns in some mean­ing­ful ways. For more infor­ma­tion, head over to The Chron­i­cle of High­er Edu­ca­tion, which has the full sto­ry.