This week Google introduced print.google.de, the German version of the search engine Google posted online this time last year. Google lets users type in a search term then scans its digitized library for the word or expression and produces a list of books where the term is mentioned. Users can then click on the results and a few pages of the text appear allowing users to read up online. The idea is to supplement Internet users with another source of material. In contrast to their American colleagues, German publishing houses have reacted well to the database. Google said that is discussing terms with all major German publishers. Langenscheidt, which publishes a large selection of dictionaries, said they had got on board.
"We are starting with 160 books," Hubert Haarmann, head of the electronic publishing division and the publisher, told the Financial Times Deutschland. "We see it as an additional distribution possibility." An increased and more direct reach to the consumer is just one way Google is promoting its new project to skeptical publishers. The company also says that publishers will be able to monitor interest in titles through the search engine, and use the information in deciding whether to reprint certain books. Google has also promised publishers a cut of the advertising that will appear on the site.
Not all German publishers are on board. In fact, the German association representing publishers has announced it will begin its own project where publishers can scan their own books, rather than let someone else do it.
(PS: Deutsche Welle misunderstands what's happening. The interviewed German publishers --like most US publishers-- support the Google Publisher project. There's no evidence yet whether they support or oppose the very different Google Library project. For more on the difference, see my article from the October SOAN. Basically, Google Publisher is opt-in and Google Library is opt-out. All five publishers now suing Google over its Library project are happy participants in the Publisher project.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 10/21/2005 09:43:00 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.
