Author and publisher rights advocacy groups reached an agreement with Google Tuesday to make the digitized resources of the Google Book Project more accessible to the campus and national audiences.

The Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers sued Google in 2005, citing violations of copyright law in the company’s digital book initiative. The Google Book Project pairs Google and several university research libraries, including those at UW-Madison, University of Michigan, Stanford University and Harvard University.

“Most Big Ten campuses have some involvement,” said Ken Frazier, director of the UW-Madison General Library System. He said the pending settlement between Google and the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers would clarify some issues being disputed about unrestricted access to the content.

Frazier went on to say the ultimate goal is to digitize 500,000 volumes from UW-Madison to make content more available to everyone.

According to an e-mail sent Tuesday to library faculty and staff, the proposed lawsuit settlement covers in copyright books, online viewing of the books, providing services for people with print disabilities and creating new research centers.

“By Google and the plaintiffs clarifying the copyright disagreements that they’ve had, it exposes more public domain material for a wider audience,” said Ed Van Gemert, deputy director of UW-Madison Libraries.

According to Van Gemert, the agreement leaves the university with a library digital copy of the content, which enables the library system to continue the preservation of its electronic content.

“That’s important as we move forward in time,” he said.

Google will also be providing an institutional subscription to all the digitized content within the next two years. Frazier said there will be a workstation at every stand-alone library on campus providing access to the digitized resources.

Although the university will have to evaluate the cost and value of the subscription, Van Gemert said, “we think that having access to all of the millions and millions of content will be useful.”

According to the faculty and staff e-mail, the project on campus is a collaborative effort between UW-Madison Libraries, the Wisconsin Historical Society and Google.