Ivy League school joins Google project

Google Inc., owner of the most- popular Internet search engine, added New York's Columbia University to its online book library, the fourth Ivy League school to join.

Google will make hundreds of Columbia's book collections available in digital form for free, according to the Mountain View, Calif.-based company. The collections range from architecture to political science.

Columbia is the 28th institution to sign onto Google's library project, joining Harvard University, Cornell University and Princeton University. Google started the scanning program in 2004 with a goal of making all of the world's books available online.

Publishers have sued Google for violating copyright law by scanning and storing copies of their books. The company says it complies with the "fair use" provision of the law by showing snippets of copyrighted works and only making public-domain texts available in their entirety. The suits are pending.

Founded in 1754 as King's College, Columbia is the fifth oldest university in the U.S., according to its Web site. The school's 25 libraries have 9.2 million volumes.

Other members of Google's book-scanning project include Japan's Keio University and the New York Public Library.