Princeton libraries join Google book-scan project

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Princeton University has become the 12th major library system to join Google's ambitious, sometimes-controversial project to scan the world's great literary works and make them searchable over the Web.

The Web search leader said on Monday Princeton had agreed to work with it to digitize about 1 million public domain books -- works no longer covered by copyright protections.

The combined collections of the university's libraries total more than 6 million printed works, 5 million manuscripts and 2 million nonprint items.

A Google spokeswoman said her company and the 250-year-old Princeton library system would work together to determine which portions of the collection would be digitized.

Two years ago, Google Inc. began the book-scanning project with a core group including the New York Public Library and academic libraries at Harvard, Oxford, Stanford and the University of Michigan.

Six months ago, the University of California became the first of a second round of libraries to join, followed by the University Complutense of Madrid, the National Library of Catalonia and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, University of Virginia, and the University of Texas at Austin.

Only the Michigan and Texas libraries agreed to scan works that are still under copyright. The rest have said they are focusing on public domain works or are still considering whether to scan copyrighted works.

More details can be found at books.google.com/.

In October 2005, five big U.S. publishers, together with the Association of American Publishers, sued Google seeking to block its plans to make libraries' works searchable online.

The case has yet to come to trial.