(21 May 2007 6:55 pm)

MUMBAI: Google will soon digitalise about 8,00,000 books, including manuscripts from the Mysore University. Most of the titles are written on paper and palm leaves and it also includes Arthashastra, India's first political treatise.

Google will also be digitising 7,00,000 other books free-of-cost. The idea behind digitising for free is to get free links to these materials once the necessary patenting is complete.

It will also provide expertise, software, and manpower for the digitization work. Meanwhile, Mysore University is training some of its select Physics students to help in the digitization process.

Mysore University vice chancellor J.Shashidhara Prasad said that this is an effort to restore and preserve this rich cultural heritage for effective dissemination of knowledge.

“Many manuscripts on ayurveda, mathematics, medicine, science, astrology and economy including Arthasastra and several paper manuscripts of the Wodeyar dynasty of Mysore will be digitized first,” Prasad was quoted as saying, in a release.

He also confirmed that the digitized versions of manuscripts would be patented depending on exclusivity and would be printed, once the digitization work was over.

The process once complete would allow students, scholars, and historians from all over the country to access this vast knowledge base.