[WEB4LIB] Re: Google Print as the library's mission

[Fiona Bradley]

>>> "K.G. Schneider" <kgs at bluehighways.com> 22/12/2004 4:41:14 am >>>
>I think I am starting to get some language to map to my concerns. Call it
>the WalMart syndrome. I'm concerned not only that Google could decide, down
>the road, that preservation of the written record just isn't their bag, man,
>but also that Google could decide it is very much worth their while to be
>not merely the premier but the only database provider, and get to that point
>by squeezing out other competitors (the database equivalent of the local
>hardware store) until we live in a Google/Froogle/Schoogle universe. 

I found this article the other day that points to this possibility - 

"While placing millions of books online could boost traffic to Google, longer term, this prospect creates a threat not to Microsoft and Yahoo * who have scrambled to announce their own desktop search tools after Google introduced its own earlier this year * but to premium content providers, said Gartner analyst Allen Weiner. Sales of specialized content, like legal filings and scientific journals, are a lucrative business for companies like Reed Elsevier, the company behind the LexisNexis search engine. This leaves a whole new group of companies scrambling to figure out what Google will do next."
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=11071&hed=Google+takes+the+competition+to+school

And let's not forget Google labs' mission - "Google's mission: Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."
http://labs.google.com/why-google.html 

That sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it!

These issues (particularly the idea of information being available only if it's to a company's profit advantage) are being widely explored in the literature of information commons. Nancy Kranich's papers on the subject are a good place to start  - http://www.fepproject.org/policyreports/infocommons.contentsexsum.html 

cheers,
Fiona


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