• [Google's idea of] making books available online is not new, but this plan represents an enormous shift in scale, so enormous that if it is carried out successfully, it may redefine the nature of the Internet and the university….

• Another crucial concern is the well-being of the books themselves…. It is an illusion to think that the digital versions of scanned books can replace the books themselves….

• …each library will… get a digital backup…, but it will be critical to remember that printed books are a stable medium, one that has persisted for hundreds of years…. Digital technology is only a few years old, and even in that brief time, the digital world has produced dozens of incompatible, and often unreadable, media formats. The Google project will enhance the usefulness of the books it encompasses, but it in no way will render them obsolete.
  

- New York Times editorial (12/21/2004)