Michael Gorman, Google and God's Mind, Los Angeles Times, December 17, 2004 (free registration required). Excerpt: 'If you are taken in by all the fanfare and hoopla that have attended [the Google] project to digitize all the books in a number of major libraries (including the University of Michigan and New York Public), you would think they are well on their way to godliness. I do not share that opinion. The books in great libraries are much more than the sum of their parts....The nub of the matter lies in the distinction between information (data, facts, images, quotes and brief texts that can be used out of context) and recorded knowledge (the cumulative exposition found in scholarly and literary texts and in popular nonfiction). When it comes to information, a snippet from Page 142 might be useful. When it comes to recorded knowledge, a snippet from Page 142 must be understood in the light of pages 1 through 141 or the text was not worth writing and publishing in the first place. I am all in favor of digitizing books that concentrate on delivering information, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias and gazetteers, as opposed to knowledge. I also favor digitizing such library holdings as unique manuscript collections, or photographs, when seeing the object itself is the point....I believe, however, that massive databases of digitized whole books, especially scholarly books, are expensive exercises in futility based on the staggering notion that, for the first time in history, one form of communication (electronic) will supplant and obliterate all previous forms.' Gorman is dean of library services at Cal State Fresno and president-elect of the American Library Association.
Reply: Kevin Drum, Google and the Human Spirit, Washington Monthly, December 17, 2004. 'Gorman starts with a reasonable, if pedestrian, observation: information is not knowledge....Which is all fine. It's slightly nannyish advice, to be sure....Unfortunately, Gorman then proceeds to drive straight over a cliff and explode in a cataclysmic fireball of ignorance and contempt: "I am all in favor of digitizing books that concentrate on delivering information, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias and gazetteers, as opposed to knowledge....I believe, however, that massive databases of digitized whole books, especially scholarly books, are expensive exercises in futility based on the staggering notion that, for the first time in history, one form of communication (electronic) will supplant and obliterate all previous forms."...How can a scholar possibly have such a narrow mind --and a scholar of books, no less? Suggesting that Google should limit itself to reference books and leave everything else alone bespeaks a paucity of both spirit and vision that's staggering. I have no idea whether Google's initiative will eventually be successful. But I do know that digitizing and indexing vast stores of knowledge will be a boon to scholars on dozens of levels, as well as a source of knowledge and fascination to the rest of us. Will we all read entire books online? Or print them out? Probably not. But when I use a brick-and-mortar library I don't always do that either. I browse. I peek into books. I take notes from chapters here and there. A digitized library allows me to do the same thing, but with vastly greater scope and vastly greater focus. I wonder if there's still time for the ALA to un-elect Mr. Gorman as its upcoming president? He's an embarrassment to their profession.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/21/2004 01:20:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
