Adler said digitization may create “an ease of reproduction and distribution of copyrighted material” if Harvard allows its students internet access to the digital copies.

But Flecker wrote that HUL has worked out a system to provide “on-line access to the public domain works [while access to] works still under copyright will depend on publisher/copyright holder permission.”

TOO AMERICAN?

The project has also come under criticism from Jean-Noël Jeanneney, president of the French national library, who has already digitized 80,000 volumes of the French library. He said the Google project would inevitably be biased in favor of English language and Anglo-Saxon publications. Jeanneney’s complaints were reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education earlier this month.

Jeanneney did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Flecker, however, insists that HUL’s vast amount of foreign works will counteract the Anglo-American influence Jeanneney proposes.

“Well over half our collection is not in English,” Flecker said, adding that non-English books would be represented in digitization project.

Notwithstanding the criticism, HUL Director Sidney Verba ’53 says the project has generally been well-received and will continue as planned. The copyright laws in question are aimed at corporations, not libraries, he added.

“Overall, there has been more positive reaction than negative,” he said. “Copyright laws are written for companies like Time Warner and Disney instead of research libraries like Harvard. [These laws are] not aimed at us.”