Google/Print/Watch

Updating the Google Library entry of last week, the Google Watch.org has obtained a copy of Google’s agreement with the University of Michigan and posted it on the Internet. Start reading the saga here, and for the actual agreement, follow links here. The mystery is, of course, if the entire agreement is so confidential, why did Google make it, knowing a public university is bound by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), or perhaps more pertinently, what’s the big secret?

According to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, both the University of Michigan and Stanford University will provide Google with books still under copyright protection for scanning into Google’s database. At the heart of the controversy between Google and book publishers is the provision for Google to make two digital copies of books under copyright, one for Google, the other for the college. John Wilkin, associate university librarian at Michigan, told Business Week Online

that while Google plans to digitize the library’s entire holdings, copyrighted content will be placed in a “dark archive” that no one, including Michigan faculty and students, will be able to access.

Beam your comments on the Dark Archive to Georganna at Writer’s Edge.