Google Inc. and the British Library on Monday announced a deal to scan and digitize 250,000 out-of-copyright books and make them available online.

The two sides issued a joint statement in which they confirmed that they would work in partnership over the coming years to offer up to 40 million digitized pages from 1700 to 1870 though Google Books and the British Library's website.

Speaking on the topic, Google spokesman Peter Barron said, "The public domain material is an important part of the world's heritage and we're proud to be working with the British Library to open it up to millions of people in the U. K. and abroad."

Digitization costs of the project, which will offer complete text search, downloading and reading over the Internet, will be covered by Internet search giant Google.

Google has already made more than 13 million books available on the Internet through deals with different libraries. The Mountain View, Calif.-based search engine has contracts with over 40 libraries to scan books from their collections.

The list of first documents to be digitized includes the feminist works of Queen Marie-Antoinette, and details of a hippopotamus owned by the Prince of Orange.