In what is without doubt a strategic advance in the looming Microsoft / Google slapfight, the boys in Redmond have announced a deal to scan the 25 million book holdings of the British Library. Microsoft announced their intentions to enter the digital book club a few weeks back.

Already on this increasingly crowded dance floor are the aforementioned Google, Amazon, the Internet Archive, Yahoo, a group called the Open Content Alliance and well, the French.

Hat tip to the Law Librarian blog where I first read about the Microsoft / British library deal.

-- MDT