Michael Hart, Is Google Print Real? A listserv posting, June 14, 2005. Hart is the founder of Project Gutenberg, which provides OA to public-domain books. Excerpt: 'Today is the six month anniversary of the huge multi-million dollar media blitz announcing Google Print, the most important event since Gutenberg's invention of the printing press....One of the MAJOR CHANGES in Google Print seems to be that they have decided they're NOT GOING TO PROMOTE READING of those 10-15 million books they mentioned in their worldwide press releases. Instead it seems their first recommendation is going to be to click on some of the online bookstores they are promoting, and secondly they send us off to search in libraries. From: Google Print Help: "Google Print helps you discover books, not read them online....To read the whole book, we encourage you to use the 'Buy this book' link to purchase it online..." (These comments are neatly buried in the very middle of the help section, just about exactly half way through. #5 & #7.) Six months ago, we all heard that Google was going to revolutionize the entire concept of libraries with their new project at a rate of of 10,000 to 15,000 books per week which would yield over a quarter of a million books in their first 26 weeks at the lower rate, and a figure nearer half a million at the higher rate, even presuming the total was zero on December 14th. However, now it appears that Google has changed horses in midstream and replaced much of the actual "library" qualities of Google Print with "catalog" properties. . .they are now actually saying in their offical publications to "discover books, not read them online."' (Thanks to Charles W. Bailey, Jr.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/16/2005 03:04:00 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.
