GOOGLE HAS MADE a number of scanned magazine articles available to Google Books users. The book search tool, which digitises books and makes them available to web users in online searches, now includes articles from a number of US magazines including Popular Science and the New York Magazine.

The service faced criticism from authors and publishers regarding the copyright ofthe digitlsed works. A number of authorities even filled lawsuits against the search engine.

However, Google struck a deal with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers to ensure that the books could still be made available on the web, providing users purchase the lifetime rights to read and print scanned books searched through Google. The US District Court in New York still has to approve the deal."Over time, as we scan more articles, you'll see more and more magazines appear in Google Book Search results," Google said in a blog.

Eventually, we'll also begin blending magazine results into our main Google.com search results, so you may begin finding magazines you didn't even know you were looking for." However, if you're seeking very recent issues of the magazines you may be out of luck.