Jeffrey Young, From Gutenberg to Google: Five views on the search-engine company's project to digitize library books, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 3, 2005. Excerpt: 'It's been nearly six months since the company announced that it would work with five of the world's largest libraries in an effort to scan millions of books and make the full texts part of its popular search index. But some librarians and publishers say they are still in the early stages of understanding what the project's impact might be on their fields, and on scholarship in general. The Chronicle asked five key players to comment on the project and its meaning.
'MARGINAL UTILITY': Books may eventually be reduced to formats in which they have virtually no meaning, worries Michael Gorman, president-elect of the American Library Association.
END RESULT: The digitization project will not threaten the library's central role in connecting users with information, says John P. Wilkin, of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
STRESSING THE POSITIVE: Google hopes to add even more books to its digitized collection, from publishers as well as from libraries, says Adam M. Smith, a senior business-product manager at the company.
STRETCHING 'FAIR USE': Google should address some questions about the rights of authors and publishers, according to Peter Givler, executive director of the Association of American University Presses.
A MATTER OF CONTINENTAL HERITAGE: The effort to get European librarians to join in creating a large-scale digital library of their own is under way, reports Jean-Noël Jeanneney, the president of the National Library of France.'
(Young's article and all five of the related articles are accessible only to subscribers. The Chronicle is hosting an online discussion of these issues, which also appears to be limited to subscribers.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/31/2005 10:09:00 AM.
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.
