[Web4lib] RE: Re: RE: More on the Open Content Alliance

[Lars Aronsson]

Richard Wiggins wrote:

> Indeed, someone in the audience during a panel discussion on 
> Google Print at the recent Internet Librarian conference raised 
> a related concern:  What happens when libraries participating in 
> the project begin to feel shelf space pressures?  I asked if he 
> was concerned a la NIcholson Baker w/r/t libraries shedding 
> newspaper collections after they are microfilmed or digitized.  
> He said that was exactly his concern.

Sorry, I don't follow.  How would this "shelf space pressure" 
relate to Google's activities?  Should we burn Google now so that 
libraries are forced to keep everything?  Or should Google hurry 
up to scan everything before these crazy libraries throw it away?

By the way, libraries that are concerned with Google's secrecy 
should become role models by joining the Open Content Alliance, or 
by unilaterally adopting similar principles of openness.  There 
are far too many libraries (especially in Europe) who don't allow 
free copying of the out-of-copyright books that they have 
digitized.  Useful high resolution scanned images and OCR texts 
are all too often hidden behind web designs that are hard to use. 

If everybody went open, we wouldn't see closed-minded declarations 
such as http://gallica.bnf.fr/les_droits.htm


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