• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, August 15, 2005

Google late last week temporarily halted a program to scan into its system copyrighted books from university libraries at Harvard, Michigan, and Stanford. Google will suspend the initiative until at least November, to give publishers of books under copyright time to notify Google if they don't want those books scanned.

The suspension came about as the result of talks with industry groups and authors, said Adam Smith, program manager of the Google Print program. "From these discussions, we decided it was better to give them some time to communicate their desires," Smith told OnlineMediaDaily.

Google also late last week announced that publishers of books under copyright already scanned in from libraries can transfer those books into a Google program for publishers. Under the program, Google returns small portions of books to search engine users, as well as ads that direct users to sites where they can buy the books. If searchers convert by purchasing the books, Google shares sales revenue with the publisher.