Google and the Adaptive Information Cluster
There’s been a bunch of press recently over a collaboration between Google and the Adaptive Information Cluster. The AIC is an SFI funded project, with researchers located in Dublin City University and University College Dublin.
From Silicon Republic’s coverage:
Google has chosen Dublin City University’s (DCU) Adaptive Information Cluster (AIC) to take part in a project with two American universities as part of the company’s quest to make all information in the world searchable. The project will focus on making rare documents like the Book of Kells or George Washington’s personal diaries available on the web for scholars.
From DCU’s press release
In a rare outsourcing of research, Google has chosen DCU’s Adaptive Information Cluster (AIC) to take part in a project with two American universities, which is part of Google’s quest to make all information in the world searchable. This research could make invaluable manuscripts and rare historical documents – like the Book of Kells, or George Washington’s personal diaries – available and searchable on the web for scholars and interested people worldwide. Up to now, this kind of material is kept behind closed doors or is accessible for examination in digital libraries one page at a time, which is slow and cumbersome.
The photo is of Prof. Alan Smeaton of DCU, one of the SFI funded PIs on the project.
Given the activity that Google have been showing in a diverse range of information storage and retrieval projects in the recent past, it’ll be facinating to watch how this collaboration pans out.