Google library scanners back in action

Three month reprieve ends as search engine giant attempts to allay industry fears

Google has resumed scanning library books today. Adam Smith senior business product manager for Google Print confirmed on the search engine's blog that scanning would resume after a three month delay.

In his blog posting Smith goes out of his way to allay the fears of the information and publishing industry. In particular he outlines, for the first time, that the primary aim of the scanning project is to make difficult to access titles easy to discover. "As always, the focus of our library effort is on scanning books that are unique to libraries including many public domain books and out-of-print titles," Smith said.

As scanning re-starts Smith said Google was starting with the stacks of older and out-of-circulation titles.

Google has not backed down on scanning new and in-copyright books though. " We want to make all books easier to find, and as we get through the older parts of the libraries we'll start scanning the stacks that house newer books," he said.

Google claims that 80% of books published are older and the most inaccessible. Throughout the blog Smith refers to Google Print as a digital card catalogue and makes pains to remind readers that users will not be able to see the full text of books.

When Google announced the scaling back of its Google Print Library Project in August it said that in future it would not scan any in-copyright books, with Smith acknowledging that the programme had caused unease in the industry.

Recently Google has come under fire from search engine rivals Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN search who have joined the Open Content Alliance to scan out of copyright titles for an online book search tool. Google is also facing legal action from the Association of American Publishers (AAP). The APA represents major publishers including McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education and scientific publisher John Wiley & Sons.