Great news for those who are in love with reading on the Internet! Google, which has already partnered with more than 40 libraries in the world, opens the doors of the British Library to the general public.The company announced that it is working to digitize 250,000 texts to make books available freely online. These works will include books, pamphlets and periodicals dating back to the 18th Century, featuring major historic events, according to bbc.co.uk

British Library, known as the second biggest library in the World, after the Library of Congress, contains 14 million books among 150 million texts in a variety of formats, with three million being added every year, according to Fast Company.

Scanned items, selected by the British Library, will be made available at books.google.co.uk and the British Library’s website. It means that the new technology will allow users to read, search, copy and download items through Google Books or library itself for no charge.

The Library’s chief executive Dame Lynne Brindley has commented on the news, highlighting the original mission of the Library to make knowledge accessible to everyone—the Google deal is «building on this proud tradition.»

Since anyone with Internet can now access the book for free from anywhere in the world, the deal sets an important precedent and arises certain questions and issues. One of them is who will benefit from this initiative and who will lose?

One group who’ll surely appreciate the deal is historians of language. Putting the books into Google not only makes them more accessible, but also searchable in ways that haven’t been possible before. Global accessibility will be useful as a source of knowledge for current scientists. Besides, the deal will allow the British Library to preserve the originals in better way, since the full texts are going to be digitized.

Student’s essays are going to be filled up with more quotes. But at the same time, the deal can result in potential legal battles. Making 60,000 texts immediately readable on any iPad can change perception of reading itself and publishing perspectives. Among critics are the Authors Guild of America and the Association of American Publishers.