Google Print, the online library of the future

This Google project has been talked about and has become a subject of controversy since last year's autumn, when Sergey Brin and Larry Page from Google began to survey the market for a new service that the search engine would implement in online searches. The idea of this project emerged after the Frankfurt Book Fair, and announced that the publishers would be able to send the published materials to be included in the Google Print service in order for them to be scanned. The digital support obtained in this manner would then be used for online searches.

The resilience Google felt from several libraries and writers' associations in different regions could not impede the launching of a service that has the purpose of transposing into digital format any book ever written. However, the difference between providing an extremely useful yet legal service, and the massive infringement of copyright laws is a very small one, and the lawyers representing the writers' or journalists' associations have started to become more and more worried.

However, Google began to work with the Universities of Michigan, Harvard, Stanford and Oxford, but also with the New York Central Public Library, thus starting to scan the books of public interest these libraries have in store in their own collections. According to Internetnews.com, Google had previously negotiated with the respective libraries for about two years, and the secret has been kept even from the publishing houses associated to the universities.

Despite of all obstacles and controversies, from both Europe and the United States, Google Print's beta version has been launched. The service allows for the search of a book in the database, and the result is presented in the shape of the book's first three pages, accompanied by information regarding the respective edition (publisher, references, copyright, index, key, etc).