NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Amazon.com has teamed up with publishers to let customers purchase online access to digital books in a move that comes as Google faces increasing resistance from the publishing industry over its book scanning project.

The online bookseller said Thursday customers will be able to buy access to an entire book or part of a book online. The company said it also will let customers "upgrade" their purchase of a physical book on Amazon.com (Research) to include full online access. That means people could begin reading the book online immediately after they've made their purchase, while waiting for delivery.

"In collaboration with our publishing partners, we're working hard to make the world's books instantly accessible anytime and anywhere," Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, said in a statement.

Seattle-based Amazon said its new programs build upon technology that the company launched two years ago, which allowed customers to search the text of books online.

"It is important for the publishing community to explore new business models for digital delivery that compensate publishers and authors fairly. We look forward to working together with Amazon as they develop these innovative new programs to expand the market for digital content," John Sargent, CEO, Holtzbrinck Publishers, said in the Amazon statement.

Amazon's push into the digital book space comes the same day that Google (Research) brought the first collection of books scanned as part of its book digitization project online.

Googleteamed up with a number of libraries last year to make their collections searchable and available online, but it has met resistance from publishers, who have sued the Internet search company over copyright issues.

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Click here for more about Google's first batch of online books.