Google Book-Scanning Efforts Spark Debate

Google Inc. chief executive Eric Schmidt gestures during a news conference in a Mountain View, Calif. file photo from Sept. 28, 2005 to announce plans to build a new one million square foot corporate campus at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View. Google and NASA said Monday that they have finalized an agreement to deliver more of the space agency's imagery and information through the Internet's leading search engine. Under the arrangement, Ames will feed Google with its weather forecasting information, three-dimensional maps of the moon and Mars, and real-time tracking of the International Space Station and space shuttle flights so the pictures and data are available to anyone with an Internet connection. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File) (Paul Sakuma - AP)

Google hasn't said how many digital copies it has made since announcing its ambitious project two years ago. The company will only acknowledge that it is scanning more than 3,000 books per day _ a rate that translates into more than 1 million annually. Google also is footing a bill expected to exceed $100 million make the digital copies _ a commitment that appeals to many libraries.

The non-copyrighted material in Google's search engine can be downloaded and printed out _ a feature that the company believes mirrors the goals of the Open Content Alliance.

Although the Open Content Alliance depends on the Internet Archive to host its digital copies, other search engines are being encouraged to index the material too.

Both Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp., which run the two largest search engines behind Google, belong to the alliance. The group has more than 60 members, consisting mostly of libraries and universities.

None of Google's contracts prevent participating libraries from making separate scanning arrangements with other organizations, said company spokeswoman Megan Lamb.

"We encourage the digitization of more books by more organizations," Lamb said. "It's good for readers, publishers, authors and libraries."

The motives behind Google's own book-scanning initiative aren't entirely altruistic. The company wants to stock its search engine with unique material to give people more reasons to visit its Web site, the hub of an advertising network that generated most of its $2 billion profit through the first nine months of this year.

Despite its ongoing support for the Open Content Alliance, Microsoft earlier this month launched a book-scanning project to compete with Google. Like Google, Microsoft won't allow its digital copies to be indexed by other search engines.

While Kahle says he was disappointed by Microsoft's recent move, he remains more worried about Google's book-scanning initiative because it has gathered so much attention and support.

All but one of the libraries contributing content to Google so far are part of universities. They are: Harvard, Stanford, Michigan, Oxford, California, Virginia, Wisconsin-Madison, and Complutense of Madrid. The New York Public Library also is relying on Google to scan some of its books.

The University of California, which also belongs to the Open Content Alliance, has no regrets about allowing Google to scan at least 2.5 million of the books in its libraries. "We felt like we could get more from being a partner with Google than by not being a partner," said university spokeswoman Jennifer Colvin.

But some of the participating libraries may have second thoughts if Google's system isn't set up to recognize some of their digital copies, said Gregory Crane, a Tufts University professor who is currently studying the difficulty accessing some digital content.

For instance, Tufts worries Google's optical reader won't recognize some books written in classical Greek. If the same problem were to crop up with a digital book in the Open Content Alliance, Crane thinks it will be more easily addressed because the group is allowing outside access to the material.

Google "may end up aiming for the lowest common denominator and not be able to do anything really deep" with the digital books, Crane said.