In the Xmas issue of the New York Review of Books Robert Darnton writes about the challenges that libraries face these days. Towards the end of his article he discusses the initiative to start a Digital National Archive in the United States. In this context Darnton makes some interesting remarks about Google Books:

“Perhaps even Google itself could be enlisted in the cause. It has digitized about two million books in the public domain. It could turn them over to the DPLA as the foundation of a collection that would grow to include more recent books—at first those from the problematic period of 1923–1964, then those made available by their rights holders. Google would lose nothing by this generosity; each digitized book that it made available could, if other donors agree, be identified as a contribution from Google; and it might win admiration for its public-spiritedness.”

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/dec/23/library-three-jeremiads/?page=3