Google and Lots of Books

This isn't really news considering more than 120 news sources (according to, what else, Google) have picked up the story from the AP source last night. Here's one version but this story isn't hard to find. This version is CNet posting a New York Times article which is handy as the NYT requires registration.

"It may be only a step on a long road toward the long-predicted global virtual library. But the collaboration of Google and research institutions that also include Harvard, the University of Michigan, Stanford and the New York Public Library is a major stride in an ambitious Internet effort by various parties. The goal is to expand the Web beyond its current valuable, if eclectic, body of material and create a digital card catalog and searchable library for the world's books, scholarly papers and special collections."

This is all good, isn't it?