A settlement this week will determine the legality of Google’s proposed e-book platform.

Google Editions, an extension of the Google Books scanning project, is the corporation’s attempt to generate revenue from making printed books accessible via the Internet or any device equipped with a web browser.

The initiative has garnered concern that it may violate copyright law.

“The biggest barrier is that the publishers need to hold on to their rights to make sure that the writer gets properly compensated,” Steve Alb, director of The Book Store and Graphic Services at Western, said. “It’s not legal to provide copyrighted material in digitized format so Google is trying to get around that.”

A settlement in Google’s favour would allow the company to digitize almost all books available in print and any book being sold in the U.S. published as of Jan. 5, 2008.

According to Alb, an e-book platform is currently in the works at Western in order to provide access to textbooks and other material in digitized form.

“It’s not a response to [Google’s] initiative, but we’re committed to providing the course material in whatever form,” Alb said. “We are trying to do this responsibly.”

In the view of Harriet Rykse, collections evaluation librarian at Western, the Google e-book platform should not render research libraries obsolete.

“I think we are a pretty long way from that yet. Libraries will always have a role in organizing material and making it available,” Rykse said. “A lot of things that Google is focusing on is out-of-print material.”

“The more research that’s available to people the better but that has to be balanced with crediting sources and publishers,” she added.

Beyond copyright concerns, the launch of Google Editions is likely to have a surprisingly mixed environmental impact according to EnviroWestern co-ordinator Holly Stover.

“The pros of reading online versus print are obvious: eliminating the energy consumed for transportation of books, reducing intense demand on forests for paper to make new books and chemical pollution caused by inks,” Stover said. “However, reading used print books instead of buying new books is likely better for the environment than reading an online book.”

According to Stover, studies have shown 10 minutes of online reading can emit equivalent amounts of carbon emissions as the manufacturing process of a newspaper.

“I think if providing more online books will mean less people [buying] new books, then it will have a positive environmental impact,” Stover added. “Drawbacks to the initiative environmentally would be allowing people to become used to using online books through Google without carefully considering the environmental impacts.”

Alb also added there are issues beyond copyright regulations that need to be dealt with including time limits set for the viewing of an e-book.

“It’s really ahead of its time,” Alb said. “No company has been able to provide this service before.”