[Web4lib] Interesting article on Google Book Search

[Sloan, Bernie]

Interesting article by Siva Vaidhyanathan in the December 2 issue of the
Chronicle of Higher Education:

Vaidhyanathan, Siva. A Risky Gamble With Google. Chronicle of Higher
Education, Volume 52, Issue 15, Page B7. December 2, 2005.

Available online (subscription required) at:
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i15/15b00701.htm 

Siva also has posted a version on his blog:

http://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/archives/002445.html  

A brief excerpt:

"This particular project, I fear, opens up more problems than it solves.
It will certainly fail to live up to its utopian promise. And it
dangerously elevates Google's role and responsibility as the steward -
with no accountability - of our information ecosystem. That's why I, an
avowed open-source, open-access advocate, have serious reservations
about it.

It pains me to declare this: Google's Library Project is a risky deal
for libraries, researchers, academics, and the public in general.
However, it's actually not a bad deal for publishers and authors,
despite their protestations."

Bernie Sloan
Senior Information Systems Consultant
Consortium of Academic & Research Libraries in Illinois
616 E. Green Street, Suite 213
Champaign, IL  61820-5752

Phone: (217) 333-4895
Fax:   (217) 265-0454
E-mail: bernies at uillinois.edu