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By TIM COLE

Although Greensboro may be abuzz these days about luring Google here to build an ultra-fast broadband Internet system, folks may be less aware of another Google project that quite literally could revolutionize the way we access information from books.

In 2004, Google, the world's most popular Internet search engine, began a project to digitize millions of books from some of the leading research libraries in the world, such as those at Harvard, Stanford and Oxford universities.

The project eventually came to be known as "Google Books."

To give you some idea of the size of the proposed Google Books digital library, consider that Greensboro Public Library has a little more than 560,000 books and other media (such as DVDs) in its collections systemwide.

By contrast, when the Google Books project is completed, an incredible digital library of 15 million books or even more will be placed at our fingertips!

But before we get too excited about this amazing prospect, we first need a little reality check. The truth is that the Google Books project has been bogged down in contentious copyright issues since 2005.

In that year, a class-action copyright infringement lawsuit was brought against Google by the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers. Authors and publishers were especially concerned about violations of their rights to millions of in-copyright, but out-of-print books.

This suit was settled in October 2008, with Google granted digital rights to virtually all copyrighted works in the United States, but having to share revenues with authors and publishers through a "Book Rights Registry."

However, as librarians, educators and others became aware of the terms of the 2008 settlement, they expressed concerns that Google was creating a monopoly.

Then the settlement suffered a setback. In September 2009, final approval by a federal judge was placed in jeopardy by a Justice Department anti-trust ruling.

A month later, the judge ordered Google and its partners to submit a revised settlement. This was done, but a few weeks ago the Justice Department opined that the revisions were inadequate, and the judge's approval is still up in the air.

That's where we stand now.

Nonetheless, digitizing has gone on and Google Books is available to users. As many older works are considered "public domain" (i.e., unprotected by copyright), they are free for all to view.

To try Google Books, just go to google.com, click on "more" at the top of the screen, then select "Books."

As for what Google Books will eventually mean to Greensboro Public Library and others, that's difficult to say since approval of the 2008 settlement remains uncertain.

By terms of the settlement, Google has agreed to provide at least one free public access terminal in each library building. Users will have to pay to print, however, with fees divided among Google and copyright holders.

Libraries also have some concerns that were not addressed in the settlement. One is remote user access. It would be preferable if library patrons could access Google Books from home computers, not just from their library.

Still another concern is copyright law. For example, the 2008 settlement makes no provisions for "fair use," which provides for limited reproduction without violating copyright, say, for teaching or research.

Further, the charging of royalty fees for copying is unprecedented. And there are privacy concerns. If it is necessary for library users to make prints, will they be required to share credit card information? Should Google be free to collect information about the digital books library users view?

But problems or no, the Google Books story once again illustrates the transformative potential of information technology.

Tim Cole is a librarian with the Greensboro Public Library. In addition to his reference desk duties, he is responsible for interlibrary borrowing and manages the library's Current Events Blog.