[WEB4LIB]

[Lars Aronsson]

george at library.caltech.edu wrote:

> Marcus A. Banks. The excitement of Google Scholar, the worry of Google
> Print. Biomedical Digital Libraries 2005, 2:2
> <http://www.bio-diglib.com/content/2/1/2> . 

I think the hype and anti-hype about Google Print is reaching absurd
levels.  All that exists is a tiny prototype and a press release
predicting where it might be ten years from now, with 15 million
volumes digitized in 2015.  But we can seldom predict or imagine what
will happen in ten years.  It's science fiction.  Where is my flying
car?  Has anybody seen numbers on how big Google Print is today or
will be one year from now?

Project Gutenberg has the goal -- and track record -- of doubling
their collections every year.

If the same is true for Google Print, the last half of their 15
million volumes can be digitized in the final year, the announced
2015.  The year before, 2014, they will need to digitize one quarter
of the total or 3.75 million volumes.  In the year Y they will need to
digitize 2^(Y-2016) of their total, which for 2005 means 2^-11 =
1/2048 of 15 million = 7,300 books.  With an average 300 pages per
volume, that is 2.2 million pages or 110 linear metres of shelving.
That is not enormous.  The University of Michigan's "Making of
America" collection is already larger than that with 8,500 books.

Then just keep doubling that every year until done in 2015.


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Project Runeberg - free Nordic literature - http://runeberg.org/