[Web4lib] Interesting article on Google Book Search

[Jennifer Heise]

On 12/1/05, K.G. Schneider <kgs at bluehighways.com> wrote:
>
> As a meta-observation, not only do we not bash Google on Web4Lib, but at
> times we seem to adulate this company and grant it extraordinary leeway
> and
> leniency (as sometimes happens with Apple, whose "iTunes uber alles"
> approach to DRM rarely gets a real sharp finger-wag, not to mention that
> sacred e-cow, Wikipedia). When I mentioned last week that I trip over the
> name of GBS, I received private email that that "Google made a good choice
> and deserve to have that choice honored rather than ignored." The
> emotional
> quality of the mail I received really startled me. If I refer to my
> favorite
> drive-in restaurant as The Old In and Out, as I often do, would you really
> care? Would you tell me that it made you angry? Frustrated? That it meant
> I
> was "bashing" Google?


I think the level of frustration is that those loud librarians who pick
apart every move Google makes aren't interested in focusing the same level
of criticism at other efforts. It seems to be "Google is big, works well,
and is popular. And it has a 'don't be evil' philosophy and reputation.
Therefore it should not be allowed to think about or attempt answers to this
problem." Every Google functionality is analyzed as a clue to The Great Evil
Plan that will eventually use it.

The biggest hint was when Yahoo and Microsoft, both 'bad guys' in that they
have histories of violating users' intellectual control and privacy, come
out with an alternative to Google Print, nobody suggests that, for instance,
Yahoo and Microsoft will probably be tracking every use made of the content
in order to build profiles of the users and sell the profiles or bill the
users-- though we know both things have been contemplated and/or done by
such companies.

When a database created by a library comes out with, oh, 100-200 records in
it, we don't jump all over it and say it's by definition useless; we say it
could be better if development continues.. When Google Scholar came out,
within 2 weeks every library pundit was complaining that it wasn't
comprehensive enough, etc.

But it is worth asking what it means
> to librarianship to sole-source and privatize all this content, even with
> all the reassurances that Google Means Well. Even with the knowledge that
> the public sector can't and won't do this (given we have much higher
> national priorities such as starting wars on foreign soil and melting
> polar
> ice caps), that doesn't mean we can't think critically about what this
> project means and whether the arrangement is one that will be good for the
> world in the long run.


Let's just stop and think about that for a minute. If the alternative is
Google doing it, or MSN/Yahoo doing it, or it never getting done, why are
Web librarians so convinced that the only good choice should involve Google
NOT doing it?

The cheap and easy response is sure, this is great. But I really heed this
> comment: "I think the libraries are getting played badly here and they are
> violating their own principles of openness and public service by letting
> Google take charge and set the terms of this service."


Given that we have extensively proved we don't have the time or the mission
to mount an alternative?

What I'm seeing here is people saying "We can't control Google, even though
it does something we'd like to do. So it would be better to have it either
1) not done at all, or 2) done by people we already know and hate/get
frustrated with, or 3) done badly by us as long as we can keep these other
people from doing it better."

I've asked this before, and I'll ask it again. What are libraries doing to
create systems to set the terms of the service? How will the OCA safeguard
openness and public service while creating digital items funded by (and in
the possession of?) these media giants? How will they protect the data and
the access from the bottom line? I'm not seeing that. My experience as a
librarian tells me that if you partner with corporate money for a library
project, the library's say in the result will be subject to funding
contributions.