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Google checks out Library Books:
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As a part of our mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful, Google is working with several large libraries to scan their collections, bring that information online and make it searchable.
Stanford and Google to make library books available online
Confessions of a Mad Librarian: The Google deal (down on the Farm)
Google Pens New Search Chapter
Copyright prevents digitization?
Posted to http://iu.berkeley.edu/rdhyee/2005/02/07#a1347
It's interesting to me that I didn't actually see this coming. Publishing Groups Say Google's Library-Scanning Effort May Violate Copyright Laws:
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Some publishing groups say that Google's ambitious project to scan millions of library volumes and make them searchable could run afoul of copyright laws, and that Google should get permission from publishers before proceeding.
Of course, I figured that there would be copyright issues and thought that Google Library Books project would not be distributing digitized content whose copyright it does not own to the world. But it never occurred to me to think that they shouldn't be able to scan the books in the first place. If for no other reason, libraries have a duty to preserve our cultural heritage, and that undoubtedly there would provisions in our history of fair use that would cover such replicative action. I realized how naive I really was about the copyright issues and look forward to seeing how this gets all resolved. Personally, I'm rooting for Google Library Books and its project sister Internet Archive project to prevail here.
BTW, the CHE article points to Publishers irritated by Google's digital library, which does not require registration.
(August 12, 2005) Google Answers Complaints About Project to Scan Millions of Books, but Publishers Are Not Won Over.
Implications for the future of "real libraries"
The Infinite Library is about GoogleCom/LibraryBooks:
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But even if every book is reduced to a few megabytes of 1s and 0s residing on some placeless Web server, libraries themselves will probably endure. "There is no one in the field of librarianship who thinks the library is disappearing as a physical space,” says Smith. Seattle’s exuberant new Central Library, for example, is built around a four-story spiral ramp that enables an unprecedented immediacy of access to its physical book collection. But at the same time, the library provides 400 public-use computers (compared to 75 in the library that previously occupied the site), buildingwide Wi-Fi access, and a high-tech “mixing chamber” where an interdisciplinary reference team uses an array of print and electronic resources to answer patrons’ questions. More than 1.5 million people visited the new library in 2004—almost three times the entire population of Seattle.
"The real question for libraries is, what’s the ‘value proposition’ they offer in a digital future?" says Smith. "I think it will be what it has always been: their ability to scan a large universe of knowledge out there, choose a subset of that, and gather it for description and cataloguing so people can find reliable and authentic information easily." The only difference: librarians will have a much bigger universe to navigate.
