Google doubles universities in book scanning project

Twelve Midwest universities are joining Google's book scanning and digitizing project, nearly doubling the number of universities participating. The group has agreed to allow Google to digitize up to 10 million bound volumes. The universities in the group are: University of Minnesota, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Indiana University, University of Iowa, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The contract between Google and the schools, which are in the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, is for six years with an option to renew.

The University of Michigan, which is the alma mater of Google co-founder Larry Page, is already involved in Google's book scanning project, along with Oxford University, Harvard University, Stanford University, and Princeton University, among others. Google's Book Search Library Project has been sued by author and publisher groups in the U.S. and France because books that are under copyright protection will also be scanned and indexed. Google says its practice is covered by "fair use" legal provisions because it allows only small excerpts of copyrighted material to be viewed without permission of the copyright holder or publisher.