Google has begun offering, at www.print.google.com, the full texts of "public domain" books and government documents from five major libraries, including Henry James novels, Civil War histories, and Congressional acts, reports the Associated Press. Google said the material is first large batch of public domain works to be indexed since its announcement of the project a year ago, but it did not say how many books have been scanned. The effort is designed to make more library material available online - and create ad inventory for Google.

The current effort sidesteps lawsuits by U.S. publishers and authors that are attempting to put a halt to the Google's effort to also scan copyrighted books, writes Reuters. Harvard University, Stanford University, University of Michigan and the New York Public Library provided the public domain works being posted.

Google postponed the scanning of copyrighted books in August to give writers and publishers time to opt out. But, earlier this week, it said it would resume scanning in-copyright works. The initial focus, it said, would be on public domain books, orphaned works and out-of-print titles.

"These older books are the ones most inaccessible to users, and make up the vast majority of books - a conservative estimate would be 80 percent," Google said in a statement posted on its website.