14 DAY TRIAL // The big idea with Google Print is that publishers will put their books for inclusion in the service. Publishers will send their books to Google for scanning and added to the search index for no cost.
Google Print searches books according to key words and throws up a list of titles. Users can then click on any one and are taken through to a digitized version of a selected page of the book, but will not be allowed to print it. Its partners in the project are Harvard University, Stanford University, Oxford University, the University of Michigan and the New York Public Library.
Google will keep scanned copies of the books on its own servers and provide copies to the libraries from which they came.
Google rivals such as Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN Internet unit would have to strike separate agreements with the libraries to get access to the information.
The French National Library seems to disagree that this service is a good idea and ants to ensure the project does not lead a domination of American ideas.
But, Jean-Noel Jeanneney, who heads France's national library, feels that such a move will lead to a domination of American ideas over other cultures. The noted historian is fuming that Google's choice of works is likely to favour Anglo-Saxon ideas and the English language.
Jeanneney says he is not anti-American, and that he wants better relations between Europe and the United States. But he says he wants a multi-polar world in which U.S. views are not the only ones that are heard.
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