"Fifteen months after Google announced a book-scanning project of biblical proportions -– an effort to digitize the entire book collections of the New York Public Library and Harvard University libraries, among others -- the company is still secretive about how they are solving key technical problems and won't say how much they've accomplished so far."

"However, a similar if smaller project -- the Million Book Project at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh -- has been underway for about seven years. It could provide some clues. The project's director, computer scientist Raj Reddy, says he and his colleagues have no more knowledge about Google's methods or progress than anyone else, but they are tackling many of the same challenges."

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