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Google announced on Friday that another major US college library had joined its controversial project to put the world's books online.
The more than one million written works at the University of Texas library in the city of Austin will be converted to digital format and added to Google Books Library Project, according to the Internet search powerhouse.
The university's collection includes rare books and manuscripts from early Latin American history, Google said.
"Intellectual discovery is at the heart of the scholarly research process," university director of libraries Fred Heath said in a statement.
"The best collections of information are only as useful as the quality of the tools available for discovering and accessing that information."
The Google Book Search project was initiated in 2004 with the aim of scanning every literary work into digital format and making them available online.
Google has partnerships with the New York Public Library and major universities such as Harvard, Oxford, Complutense of Madrid and the University of California to add their collections to its virtual book shelves.
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AFP 192017 GMT 01 07
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