Lawsuit filing will not halt Google project

Updated 4:00 PM September 28, 2005

Lawsuit filing will not halt Google project

By Kelly Cunningham
Office of the Vice President for Communications

U-M will continue its partnership with Google to scan millions of volumes from the library's collections despite legal challenges filed last week.

"The library digitization project represents a huge leap forward in the public's ability to search and find knowledge. Throughout history, enormous breakthroughs in technology have always created challenges, but we cannot lose sight of the tremendous benefits this project will bring for society," says James Hilton, interim librarian and associate provost for academic, information and instructional technology affairs.

Through its agreement with U-M, Google is scanning and indexing the University's 7 million volume print collection. Once complete, a person looking for information will be able to use the search engine to locate and read the full text of printed works that are in the public domain. For works in copyright, a search will point the way to the existence of relevant volumes by returning a few sentences of text, along with information that identifies publishers or libraries where the work can be found.

The Google library project is transformative, Hilton says, because for the first time it will give everyone the ability to search the written record of human knowledge.

"It will change the way people do research and scholarship by allowing libraries to create a digital archive that preserves this material for all time. Only libraries are given the responsibility of archiving all of the world's written works for the public. No other entity can take on this responsibility," he says.

The lawsuit filed against Google in U.S. District Court in Manhattan alleges that the project violates copyright rules and threatens the profits of book authors. The suit, filed by the Authors' Guild and three writers, seeks to end the scanning as well as award unspecified damages. The University is not a party to the lawsuit.

Hilton says the practice complies with copyright law.

"The purpose of copyright law is to promote progress in society. In doing so, it always is a balancing act between the rights of the creator and the rights of the public," he says.

Hilton says in the future most research and learning is going to take place in a digital world. "This is a tremendously important public policy discussion. Material that does not exist in digital form will effectively disappear.

"We need to decide whether we are going to allow the development of new technology to be used as a tool to restrict the public's access to knowledge, or if we are going to ensure that people can find these works and that they will be preserved for future generations.

The Google project was announced in December 2004. Scanning of the
U-M libraries began in April. The Google Print Library project also includes research libraries at Harvard, Stanford and Oxford universities and the New York Public Library.

Lawsuit filing will not halt Google project

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