Officials at Lauinger Library say they are looking into using Google Book Search, a program that uploads rare manuscripts and artwork to the Internet, allowing users to read books online.

Artemis Kirk, university librarian, said that Georgetown already participates in Google Scholar, a program that allows the school to upload its scholarly journals, and that the university is pursuing the Google Book Search program with great interest.

“At this time, Google is working with very large libraries including Stanford, Oxford, Harvard, New York Public, Library of Congress and most recently, University of Virginia,” she said. “The Georgetown library has a medium-sized general collection that likely would duplicate those currently being digitized.”

Kirk said that Georgetown would most likely contribute its holding of over 90,000 rare books and artwork, but that Google has not yet contacted the university regarding their holdings.

Kirk added that participating in a program like Google Book Search would be beneficial to both students and faculty members.

“In addition to the obvious benefit of making more content available, the Google book scanning project can improve users’ ability to “search inside the book,” she said.

There are downsides to the new program, however. Kirk said that the Google program can be restrictive because of copyright laws.

Google Book Search currently allows users to read books that are in the public domain and out of copyright, but if the book is copyrighted, users will see only a small portion of the material.

“A simple library search through GEORGE [the online database for Georgetown University’s libraries] will very often take the user to the same book held here in the library,” she said.

Even as the university pursues a partnership with Google Book Search, Kirk said that Georgetown is already digitizing its media using a program called “Digital Georgetown.” She said the university is uploading unique resources onto the Internet, including old issues of THE HOYA from 1959 to 1980. The work would be accessible through Internet search engines like Google.

Administrators at UVA reached a deal with Google on Tuesday to participate in the online book search. Charlotte Morsord, director of communications for the UVA Library, said that the Google Book Search saves universities the time and money that is usually associated with uploading texts to make them Internet-accessible.

“Because digitalizing book takes time and money . this will enable us to do more much faster,” she said. “Google will take sections of books to an all-site facility where they will scan and return the books to us.”

Morsord said that UVA’s current agreement with Google will allow Google to upload hundreds of books online within the next six years. She did not have an exact number of books that would be uploaded under the deal.

One reason UVA decided to join the project was for greater publicity of the university’s academic collections, Morsord said. “This project will make the library’s collections more visible than ever before.”

Morsord said that she would recommend other universities to get involved in the Google Book Search. “What the benefit in the broadest possible sense is that it will make all libraries’ collections easier to discover,” she said.