A surfable sea of knowledge.

Within a few years, much of the world's literature and accumulated knowledge may literally be at your fingertips. Google is joining forces with several American research libraries and England's Oxford University to convert their collections into digital rites that will be freely available over the Internet. Google's collaborators include Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, and the New York Public Library. The project, which could take at least a decade, involves more than 15 million books. Each library will scan tens of thousands of pages per day. Other efforts toward a global. virtual library are also under way. The Library of Congress in Washington and a group of libraries from the U.S., Canada, Egypt, China, and the Netherlands plan to create an online archive of 1 million books. But digital libraries need not entirety supplant musty volumes and quiet reading rooms, according to Paul LeClerc, president and CEO of the New York Public Library. "Videos and DVDs did not replace people going to the movies," says LeClerc. "It's still easier to read a book by hand than online."