The Crimson reports today on an important watershed in the partnership between Harvard and Google: In the next few weeks, students will be able to use the Hollis computer system to access tens of thousands of books from Harvard libraries that Google has digitized.

These books are out of copyright, so this move is a good one for both readers and writers.

But here's the worrisome part:

Although Harvard’s collaboration with Google currently only involves out-of-copyright books that are not too fragile to scan, [director of the University Library Sidney] Verba has said he hopes the project will eventually include all the books in the Harvard collection.

It's true: Verba has said this on several occasions, and that's alarming. Google's attempt to scan every book has profound and problematic implications for copyright and intellectual property issues. Those concerns have prompted publishers and authors to sue the octopus-like tech company.

But even though it is a move with huge public policy ramifications that will affect hundreds of thousands of authors, Verba's decision to cooperate with Google was never publicly discussed. It was, in fact, only announced after the decision had been made.

And just how did that decision get made? It followed a meeting between Verba and Sheryl Sandberg, a Google vice-president who just happened to be Larry Summers' chief of staff at Treasury. What a coincidence! Sandberg happened to meet with Summers before visiting with Verba.

Verba may not have known what he was getting into—or what he was being pressured to do. As he later told the Times, "It's become much more controversial than I would have expected. I was surprised by the vehemence."

This is why Harvard requires more transparency: to avoid, as the song says, dirty deeds done dirt cheap. The Google decision is one that will affect every professor at Harvard, but there wasn't a single meeting, forum, editorial or other means of public discussion that took place before the decision was made.

Instead, a single person at Harvard made this partnership with Google. I'm betting it wasn't Sidney Verba.