Internet search engine Google has announced Google Print, a new book search service at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Google has already secured deals with major publishers, including Oxford University Press.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced the new service at the Book Fair. Reports from the Fair state that Blackwell, Oxford University Press, Wiley, Taylor & Francis and Penguin are amongst the publishers to have signed up to Google Print.

"We're trying to make offline information like books searchable and available online," director of product management Susan Wojcicki told the Telegraph newspaper. Google has no intentions of becoming a book retailer, Google Print allows users to search books by key words. Each publisher that joins the scheme will choose how much of its texts are available online to searchers.

Publishers will send their texts to Google for scanning and indexing. Oxford University Press recently told IWR that it has been sending texts to Google for digitisation at no cost to the publisher. "Publishers will be able to attract new readers and increase book sales," Wojcicki told the Guardian.