[Web4lib] Google Print

[K.G. Schneider]

>  For the digitizing project, it seems a fair question to ask if Google
> Print
> fully exploits the existing catalog records for each book out of the
> cooperating libraries. They say a library spends as much money on an
> original catalog entry as they do to buy most books. So the manual labor
> has
> already been paid for by the libraries themselves.
>  (Hmmm, another way in which Google may be getting an incredibly good
> deal.)

If they are using the human-generated metadata, this makes me wonder if
Google has a stake in humans continuing to produce this metadata? (Put it
another way, would Google pay for cataloging?) 

If they aren't using it, and they create a system that works well without
it, what does that say about the future of the ILS? (That's bordering on a
rhetorical question...)

I bet they're using it to figure out how to mimic its function through AI.

Karen G. Schneider
kgs at bluehighways.com