Because I know we are all just chewing on our keyboards waiting to hear what Google Book Search is doing next, and because it’s really quite unsanitary to chew on keyboards, here is the update. Most recently, Google struck a bargain with the Complutense University of Madrid to scan all the books its library holds.

The library’s collection comprises 3 million works, placing it after the National Library as the second largest in Spain. Public domain works such as those of Cervantes and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz will be available through Google; apparently, books that are still under copyright will also be partially accessible, under the searchable but not downloadable compromise that Google asserts is not copyright infringement. If the Madrid’s library will, in fact, contribute copyrighted materials to the scanning process, it will be only the second university to do so, after Michigan University.

According to the Reuters article, the Complutense’s library will be “the first library in a non-English-speaking country to join” Google’s efforts. I assume this is journalistically correct,but it might potentially be misleading, as Google announced that it was creating alliances with publishers in India six days earlier.

“We have already tied up with thousands of publishers in the US and UK and are now in talks with several Indian publishing houses over the past few days,” said Gautam Anand, Google’s strategic partner development manager. Though he shied away from naming the publishers, deals with Indian publishers such as Orient Longman, Sage Publishers, Roli Books, Orient Paperbacks, Diamond Publications and New Age International have evidently already been effectuated.

The distinction may simply arise from Madrid University laying title to the first non-English speaking library involved with Google Book Search, versus India’s publishers. In the press release for the Spanish library, a Google spokeswoman said, “We already have other non-English-language books, but this will be a huge boost to our Spanish-language content, as well as other languages.”

Or perhaps Google is only scanning the English books published in India; after all, India publishes approximately 28,000 books in English every year, a figure that falls behind only the U.S. and the U.K.

This is only one of many indications that India is swiftly becoming a major publishing force worldwide; their exports in publishing, which came in at a scant 330 million rupees in 1991, has increased exponentially to stand at 4.6 billion rupees today.

The entire Indian industry is “worth Rs.80 billion and it is growing by over 15 percent every year,” according to Shakti Mallik, president of the Federation of Indian Publishers. Its various publishers attribute growth to advancements in marketing, including email lists, personalised phone calls, preview booklets with summaries and excerpts, and affiliated blog discussions. Blog discussions! Do those work?