Microsoft was working with a number of libraries, including the British Library, to digitize books and make them searchable, and in the case of out-of-copyright books, available across the web.

Microsoft was running a Live Search Books Publisher Program (previously referred to as Windows Live Publisher) to encourage book publishers to send their books to be scanned and indexed for the service.

The project had scanned 750,000 books and indexed 80 million journal articles.

[2] The books scanned during the project are still available through Internet Archive, the organization that was hired by Microsoft to scan the books.

[4] Live Search Books displayed in-copyright book contents from the following sources:[5] In addition to the normal search capabilities, Live Search Books also featured: