The search utilizes the collections of the libraries at the University of Michigan, Stanford, Harvard, the New York Public Library, and Oxford University to index and search the public domain works. "The world's libraries are a tremendous source of knowledge, much of which has never been available online," wrote Adam Mathes, an associate product manager with the Google Print team on the search giant's blog. "One of our goals for Google Print is to change that, and today we've taken an exciting step toward meeting it: making available a number of public domain books that were never subject to copyright or whose copyright has expired."

Although the search giant is touting the public domain works available for search, copyrighted works can nonetheless also be searched and read, albeit only small snippets--five pages or so at a time--by users with a Google ID.

The searching of copyrighted works has been a point of contention between Google and publishers and authors. The Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers filed separate suits alleging copyright infringement, and Google stopped scanning and indexing texts until the beginning of November. Now, however, Google has resumed scanning books, despite the legal troubles.

Rivals MSN and Yahoo! have also set up their own book-scanning initiative, albeit with a softer touch toward authors and publishers. Yahoo!'s Open Content Alliance, which MSN joined last week, is scanning only public-domain works and the works of authors and publishers who opt-in to the service.

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