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 You've heard how publishers and authors are upset with widely publicized efforts to scan every book. You would think that libraries would be in their corner. After all, the more you can read at home, the less you will need to trudge down to a building halfway across town. Instead, libraries are embracing the technology.  
Every week, a truck hauls away books from the New York Public Library to an undisclosed location to be scanned by Google. And Google isn't alone. Yahoo, Amazon and a half-dozen other projects are doing the same. A half million titles have been digitized in the US and Canada-- the majority of them this year, and the majority of them from libraries. One explanation is the arrival of search engines. The president of the New York Public Library calls them the new librarians. "I used to think the World Wide Web was a huge revolution, comparable to Gutenberg," says Paul LeClerc. "But what I now think was authentically revolutionary and as transformative as Gutenberg were search engines."
Even after databases replaced the drawers full of index cards called "card catalogs", a good librarian could still point you to the right source faster than a computer could. Not even half of the words ever printed have been indexed. To complete the revolution, search engines must index what's left. They can't do that without scanning.
So libraries have had to reinvent themselves. The newest ones, like the high-tech Bronx branch in New York, have turned many book shelves into DVD shelves, replaced others with enough Internet access for a hundred people at a time, and are providing daily computer classes. In fact, a number of patrons told us they come to this library only for the computers.
"I come to the library for the computer classes," said one woman.
Wi-fi access, in addition to the CDs and DVDs, has turned the library into a day-care center for teens. After school, you'll see dozens of them congregating on the first floor — reading, to be sure, but also texting and socializing. They are exactly the population that worries authors and publishers, because of their history with music "sharing".
Because they consider a digitized creation as a horse out of the barn, creators view the new copiers as thieves. True, they could be flogging a dead horse. Book sales have declined every year this decade. Still, 1-out-3 books sold in the world are sold in the United States, where all this scanning business started.
The scanners respond that authors and publishers who choose not to have their books digitized will be excluded from searches. On the Google site, you will be able to view, browse, and read public domain books, but not copyrighted books. For those, Google will provide only name, title, and source.
There is a third rights holder involved in this: partners, such as publishers, who put their books on line to promote them. Google and a publisher would split the proceeds from nearby ads. Amazon, on the other hand, just wants to sell books with its free "Search Inside the Book" tool.
Adam Smith of Google insists that his company never intended to sell what it scans.
"For books that are in copyright," he assures, "we show just very short excerpts of the book."
"We view this as an evolution of the card catalog, and assisting people to find books that are of interest to them, and books that they may not have otherwise found through traditional finding means."
What Google won't help you search for is the contraption they use to do that scanning. They refuse to show it.
To see one, you have to come to an ex-military base, San Francisco's Presidio, to the Internet Archive, an open-source, nonprofit dedicated to preserving culture in video, audio and in print. This is home to one of the world's largest digitizing projects, called the Open Content Alliance.
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