It's been two years since the release of Google Book Search, a controversial search engine for millions of printed materials, and a second Big Ten school has recently been added to the list of contributors.

On October 13, the University of Wisconsin-Madison became the eighth library to join the Google Book Search project. Fellow Big Ten school the University of Michigan has been with the project since before its release.

Megan Lamb, Google spokesperson, said when a phrase or word is entered into the search bar, the site searches the full text of all books in its databases and then displays the results in order of relevancy.

Lamb said the Web site has come under fire from publishers who believe having their work on the site is a violation of copyright laws. However, she said Google is very conservative in how much of the text of any copyrighted material is visible.

She said Google only allows books in the public domain to be viewed in their entirety. Any materials published prior to 1923 are in the public domain and therefore are not protected by copyright. Books with no original copyright, such as those by the U.S. government, are fair game.

Otherwise, Google Book Search shows a few sentences before and after the submitted search term. Bibliographic information and links to Web sites where copyrighted books can be purchased are also provided. In some cases, a short synopsis is also given, Lamb said.

Michael Berkman, professor of political science, is the co-author of the book Ten Thousand Democracies, which can be accessed on Google Book Search. He said making sure the public had access to his work outweighed any copyright controversy. "If it promotes distribution, I am not opposed," he said, adding, "especially if links for places to purchase the book are provided."

Kelly Cunningham, spokesman at the University of Michigan, said students and faculty there have been very receptive to the project thus far.

"They help us, we help them," she said.

According to university's Web site, it would have taken "1,000 years just to digitize [their] current collection" before joining the project. Now, with Google's technology, everything will be available online in six years.

Although Google is not able to scan any books from Penn State libraries, the university is well into a digitization project of its own.

Sue Kellerman, head of the preservation department, said Penn State embarked on its preservation and digitization efforts in 1992. Since then, the department has been digitizing books, newspapers, maps, essays, magazines and other multimedia from Penn State library collections.

Larry Wentzel, digital preservation coordinator, explained that the main purpose of digitizing materials is to safeguard them.

"Some of our collections are very fragile in nature," he said.

"Our efforts allow students to obtain materials that would otherwise be very difficult to access."

While both Kellerman and Wentzel said they believe in open access, they are curious to see how the Google copyright controversy develops.

"The copyright business is a complicated one," Kellerman said.

"We are very careful about what we digitize here at Penn State."