Yahoo plans to begin scanning books and collecting other media content in an online database rivaling similar efforts by Google, according to a Wall Street Journal report Monday, writes MarketWatch. Yahoo, as part of a consortium called the Open Content Alliance, will begin by scanning and making available online the contents of books that are out of copyright or are licensed under a looser form of copyright known as Creative Commons.

Initially, Yahoo is funding the scanning of 18,000 books identified as part of the "American canon" by the University of California. Consumers will be able to search the contents of the Alliance's database and download entire works.

The consortium's partners include Adobe, Hewlett-Packard, Prelinger Archives and O'Reilly Media; the University of California and the University of Toronto; the National Archives of the U.K. and the European Archive in Europe, according to the Journal.