Kansas University isn’t digitizing its library collection.

But university officials would be open to the possibility — especially if someone else foots the bill.

Google Inc., the popular online search engine, said Tuesday it would pay for the New York Public Library and libraries at four major universities to scan large portions of their collections to have them available online.

Experts said the investment — estimated to be about $150 million — may be a turning point in the digital revolution of libraries. But plenty of issues remain to be settled, including copyrights, the quality of scanned materials and whether readers would prefer to go online instead of heading to the local library.

“It’s at the heart of a real complex transition,” said Bill Myers, a spokesman for KU’s libraries. “We’re living in two worlds right now: a digital world and a print world.”

The Google project will focus on books no longer covered by copyright. In addition to the New York library, the project involves libraries at the University of Michigan, Stanford, Harvard and Oxford.

The materials will be available though the same Google index that spans the Internet.

The Michigan and Stanford libraries are the only two so far to agree to submit all their material to Google’s scanners. A representative from Harvard said the university wouldn’t hand many of its materials to Google until the company could show it could scan the material without losing or damaging anything.

Future trend

Bob Marvin, an assistant at Kansas University's Watson Library, files newspapers. Google announced Tuesday morning that it would help fund the digitization of five libraries' collections. KU was not selected, but an official said the university was open to the idea -- especially if someone else wants to pay for the project.

Myers said KU wasn’t approached about including its nearly 4 million volumes in the project. But because other online entities are expected to follow Google’s lead, that possibility may exist down the road.

“I think we’d want to explore it for sure, what the possibilities are and the ramifications,” he said.

Currently, KU libraries scan limited materials for online viewing for students in certain classes. Myers said adding to the volumes available could help preserve rare volumes and broaden their availability.

Cathy Perley, an assistant professor at Emporia State University’s School of Library and Information Management, said the Google project was an exciting development for those working on research projects.

“For a state like Kansas, when so many people are not near a local library, to have materials available digitally is a remarkable contribution to their scholarship,” Perley said.

She said she expected more arrangements such as Google’s in the future. But expanding the availability of copyrighted materials would be difficult, she said.

“There is an amazing move to put in digital format all kinds of archives,” Perley said. “This is part of a huge wave. Combating that will be the publishers’ associations and the artists who want to make sure they are financially reimbursed for another use of their work. You know how aggressively (the recording industry) pursued Kazaa and Napster. I think publishers are being threatened.”

Libraries obsolete?

Libraries may push toward offering more digital material, but that may not mean the end of libraries as we know them.

“This is the day the world changes,” said John Wilkin, a University of Michigan librarian working with Google. “It will be disruptive because some people will worry that this is the beginning of the end of libraries. But this is something we have to do to revitalize the profession and make it more meaningful.”

Bruce Flanders, director of the Lawrence Public Library, agreed.

“I think this is a step forward for information access,” Flanders said. “I imagine libraries will evolve to maintain their viability in the future. We’ll probably be placing more emphasis on the librarian as a teacher as opposed to someone who helps guide people to information. Printed books certainly are here for the coming decade. But 50 years from now, I wouldn’t want to make any predictions that far out.”

— The Associated Press contributed to this report.