If you can't beat Google, join it.

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While some publishers are suing search engine Google for creating a digital library for consumers to peruse online, HarperCollins Publishers announced recently it would create its own.

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While the publisher is not exactly supporting or even competing with Google, its web users will be able to search all its book and audio content online via Internet engines like Google and Yahoo and even retailers such as Amazon.com.

The move is intended to allow HarperCollins to maintain control over its digital content rather than cede that control to other companies, Jane Friedman, chief executive, told The New York Times.

Rather than give copies of books to search services like Google to scan as it currently does, HarperCollins would keep the material on its own computers, and users would be pointed there by the search engines, Friedman explained. The publisher expects to have at least part of the service operating by mid-2006.

Currently, the Google Book Search site...