Almost a year ago, Google launched the Google Print Library Project, which means to scan all or portions of the library collections of the University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford University, The New York Public Library and Oxford University and make them searchable on Google.
This idea has been heavily criticized by copyright advocates, editors
and authors alike.
Along the way, the search company has been hit with two lawsuits over the project, the first being filed by the Association of American Publishers, and one filed by the Authors Guild and three individual writers, because it had planned to allow for searches of copyright material without seeking permission from the publishers of that material.
However, this time, Google is not causing any new waves over this subject and lets everybody know through one of the company's blogs that it will focus on books that were out of print or in the public domain.
Google wants to invest about $200 million for this digital archive which, in the end, should contain millions of books from top libraries.
According to early estimates, this indexing and digitizing project will span for a long period of time and should be complete by 2015.