For a recent comparative literature class paper, Brendan Draper wanted to quote a phrase from a novel he'd read, but he couldn't remember what page it was on.

He typed "nervous condition" into Internet search giant Google's index of books. Within seconds, he found the phrase and page number of the book. "It was extremely helpful," says Draper, 20, a student at the West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

Situations like his are exactly what Google had in mind a year ago when it unveiled the Google Print project at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, on hand for the event, told publishers they wanted to scan their books, at no cost, to make them searchable online and to help sell copies to consumers.

Google returned to the fair this October to tout the program — and to announce searches in French, Spanish, Italian and German. But it is no longer basking in the initial positive glow from publishers. Instead, it finds itself in the position of having to defend itself to the industry.

The Google Print homepage — www.print.google.com — lets users search for a phrase, character or other term to turn up a link to a related book title. Clicking on the book title generates an image of the page of the book, along with other information about it and advertising links to online bookstores. Google splits the revenue from those ads with publishers.

The entire contents of public domain books are available for viewing; for books under copyright, just a few pages or in some cases, only bibliographic data and brief snippets.

Content in Google Print comes from two sources: publishers and libraries. Google infuriated publishers after it announced an alliance in December with five libraries, including Harvard and the University of Michigan, to scan their entire collections. Google said its objective was to build the world's largest online card catalog.

Some critics in the book industry fear the library program will spark the kind of piracy problems that have beset the music and film industries. To appease publishers, Google suspended plans to scan copyrighted books until Nov. 1, although it is still scanning books at the request of copyright holders.

"Google is taking our property and not paying for it. It's burglary," says Nick Taylor, president of the Authors Guild, a New York-based association that has filed a copyright infringement suit against Google. The Association of American Publishers supports the suit.

Google Print product manager Adam Smith says the biggest misconception is that Google's master plan is to display entire books online. "We don't have permission to do that," he says. "We're a finding tool, like a digital card catalog."

Google associate general counsel Nicole Wong says that because Google puts only small portions of copyrighted books online, it has fair use rights. "We are not trying to republish their book," she says.

Google won't say how many books are in its index, but you're more likely to find older titles than best-sellers. Ninety percent of the books at Google Print are from the publisher program, Smith says. He says more library books will start to show up in the coming months.

A quick check finds no top 10 best-sellers, no "Harry Potter," nor the latest from Stephen King, Michael Connelly or James Patterson.

"Son of a Witch," the sequel to Gregory Maguire's "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West," isn't there. But "Wicked" — a re-imagining of the "Wizard of Oz," told from the Wicked Witch's point of view — is indexed and available to be searched.

A query for "Dorothy," heroine of the original "Oz," finds references on 35 pages. Each page is presented in full. Even if a savvy reader could somehow piece all of the characters in "Wicked" together, it would be a lot of work to put the pages together in the right order. If reading it for free was the goal, going to the library to borrow a copy would be a lot easier.

Publishers from big houses such as Simon & Schuster, Random House and Warner Books participate in Google Print, as do small tech-book houses such as Peachpit Press and O'Reilly Publishing.

"We're in favor of any program that can give our books more exposure," says Adam Rothberg, a Simon & Schuster vice president.

Like other publishers, he's not keen on the library program. "We agree with the rest of our colleagues that the library program, as currently envisioned, doesn't fly." Specifically, he's opposed to Google scanning books without permission. "It's not right to take the attitude, 'Copy now and ask permission later,' " he says.

One of the main sticking points is Google's controversial "opt out" policy, in which it asks publishers to specifically request that a work not be included.

For Google to scan books "without our permission is a clear violation of copyright law," says Douglas Armato, director of the University of Minnesota Press. "They're making unauthorized copies, period. It's not fair use."

Google rival Yahoo! recently announced a similar online program, called the Open Content Alliance. Yahoo! is working with the University of California to digitize its books, but with a major difference: They are scanning only books in the public domain.