Google Puts Library Collections Online

NewsFactor Network:

Search technology pioneer Google is archiving the collections from some of the world's leading libraries, putting millions of volumes at the fingertips of Internet users. Participating in the project are Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, the University of Oxford, and the New York Public Library, which have agreed to let Google digitally scan their library books and organize them online. Over time, the company will integrate this content into its index.

The internet in general and Google in particular are amazing things to me. So much information is available to us in an instant, and this knowledge is continuing to expand exponentially. This latest project of Google's will help increase that. There is one minor catch though:

Searchers will see links at the top of their results page when there are books that are relevant to their query. Clicking on a title delivers a Google Print page where users can browse the full text of public domain works and brief excerpts and/or bibliographic data of copyrighted material.

Now this wouldn't bother me at all, authors should receive recompense for their effort and Google certainly shouldn't be giving away the author's work for free. The downside though is that way is in the public domain now seems to be all that will ever be there. Congress has made it a practice to continually extending copywrite terms so that nothing new ever goes into the public domain. For more information on this I urge you to check out Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig.