While the Kindle, Sony Reader and other companies aggressively market their devices, Google has quietly been vacuuming up and digitizing entire libraries of books. The effort is the focus of a legal dispute, and a proposed settlement that would have allowed Google to proceed has run into trouble recently.

Meanwhile, Google's plan has been come clearer. At this week's Frankfurt Book Fair, a company official said Google Editions, a "buy anywhere, read anywhere" e-book program would be launched by June 2010, according to a report at The Bookseller. Amanda Edmonds, Google's director of strategic partnerships, said the company would create a "cloud library" for e-books purchased from stores, publishers and Google itself, according to The Bookseller. Books floating in that library could be accessed from laptops, phones or e-readers. "All books will live in the same library, so it doesn't matter where you buy it or where you read it." she said.

It's an interesting twist on the e-book phenomenon. It liberates content from the reading device itself, a twist on the saying that information wants to be free. But there probably still would be room for e-readers with special features, just as there is room for different types of TV sets.