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November 08, 2005, 11:31 AM ET
Google Never Stopped Scanning Library Books at U. Michigan
Recent news reports have said Google has temporarily stopped scanning library books, amid controversy over whether the project violates copyright laws. But John P. Wilkin, an associate university librarian at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, says the company has continued scanning books there for more than a year. Google, he said, had held off scanning only copyrighted works, focusing instead on public-domain volumes.
The Library Project, part of the Google Print project, is digitizing and indexing books in an arrangement with the Michigan library, the New York Public Library, and the libraries of Harvard and Stanford Universities and the University of Oxford, in England. The project has come under fire, however—including two lawsuits from publishers and authors groups—because Google plans to scan not only books in the public domain but also those under copyright. The company says search results will include only brief excerpts from books still protected by copyright, but publishers and authors argue that Google must obtain their permission before scanning a copyrighted work.
"I can assure you that Google is now and has been scanning books all year long," Mr. Wilkin said in an e-mail interview late last week.
For more on Google’s scanning project, see a recent article from The Chronicle, by Jeffrey R. Young.
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