I'm quite disappointed by this op-ed on Google's library initiative in Tuesday's Washington Post. It comes from Richard Ekman, president of the Council of Independent Colleges, which represents 570 independent colleges and universities in the US (and a few abroad). Generally, these are mid-tier schools — not the elite powerhouses Google has partnered with in its digitization efforts — and so, being neither a publisher, nor a direct representative of one of the cooperating libraries, I expected Ekman might take a more measured approach to this issue, which usually elicits either ecstatic support or vociferous opposition. Alas, no....
If you're not Michigan or Google, though, the benefits are less clear. Sure, it's great that books now come up in web searches, and there's plenty of good browsing to be done (and the public domain texts, available in full, are a real asset). But we're in trouble if this is the research tool that is to replace, by force of market and by force of users' habits, online library catalogues. That's because no sane librarian would outsource their profession to an unaccountable private entity that refuses to disclose the workings of its system — in other words, how does Google's book algorithm work, how are the search results ranked? And yet so many librarians are behind this plan. Am I to conclude that they've all gone insane?...
We may be resigned to the steady takeover of college bookstores around the country by Barnes and Noble, but how do we feel about a Barnes and Noble-like entity taking over our library systems?...
I am wholeheartedly in favor of digital libraries, just the right kind of digital libraries.
What good is Google's project if it does little more than enhance the world's elite libraries and give Google the competitive edge in the search wars (not to mention positioning them in future ebook and print-on-demand markets)?...
What's frustrating is that the partner libraries themselves are in the best position to make demands. After all, they have the books that Google wants, so they could easily set more stringent guidelines for how these resources are to be redeployed....
Google, a private company, is in the process of annexing a major province of public knowledge, and we are allowing it to do so unchallenged. To call the publishers' legal challenge a real challenge, is to misidentify what really is at stake. Years from now, when Google, or something like it, exerts unimaginable influence over every aspect of our informated lives, we might look back on these skirmishes as the fatal turning point. So that's why I turn to the librarians. Raise a ruckus.
Comment. I'm on the record preferring the OCA model to the Google model. So I certainly agree that participating libraries could exert pressure on Google to improve its model, for example by providing full open access to public-domain books with no barriers to printing, downloading, or redistribution. Nevertheless, Ben's conclusion here is marred by a number of false assumptions: (1) that librarians are "outsourcing their profession" to Google, (2) that Google is "taking over our library systems", (3) that Google's library project does "little more than enhance the world's elite libraries and give Google the competitive edge in the search wars", and (4) that Google "is in the process of annexing a major province of public knowledge".
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/25/2006 11:23:00 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.
