[Web4lib] University of California's 100 LibrariesJoinGoogle Book-Scanning Project

[Leslie Johnston]

At 01:59 PM 8/9/2006, K.G. Schneider wrote:
> > Karen,
> >
> > Keep in mind that OCA only launched as a formal production effort
> > last October, and the delivery service hasn't even launched yet. Give
> > OCA a little more time before wondering if it's dying, please. ;-)
>
>I will, but I can't be the only person who thought this, eh? :-) So, um,
>where IS the delivery service for OCA?

At one point they announced it for October of this year.  I'm not 
sure how widely they've publicized that time frame, but that's what 
we heard as participants.

> > At the kickoff meeting last October Brewster was very supportive of
> > the participating institutions working with  whatever partners needed
> > to get our collections digitized.  He did not brand the project as
> > one that's in opposition to Google except in its strategy for
> > participants to opt-in rather than opting out in terms of the
> > inclusion of copyright works.
>
>So we can chalk up the Wikipedia entry on OCA to "wikiality"?
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Content_Alliance

No, I'm just saying that Brewster has been pretty cautious about how 
he's compared the projects.  At least until now.  There was just this 
quote in an American Libraries online story about UC joining:

Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle told Cnet that while he was 
pleased the university will continue to work with the OCA, he 
criticized UC for "privatizing its library system" by agreeing to 
Google's limitations on distributing and sharing copies of digitized 
books. "They're effectively giving their library to a single 
corporation," he said. "Having a public institution decide to go with 
Google's restrictions doesn't help the idea of libraries being open 
in the future."


> > My principle concern about UC's participation in Google is that some
> > of the UC public domain materials will be found through OCA only and
> > some will be found through Google only.  Figuring out what's where as
> > a user could get complicated.  It would be nice to see the content
> > included in both services, providing multiple ways to discover and
> > view the books.
>
>Another concern is whether UC will insist that items digitized in Google
>include physical library locations. I am dismayed to go to Google Books and
>see libraries "disappeared" through item records that feature the online
>book and online booksellers for the physical item, but make no mention of
>the physical location of the item in a real-world library.
>
>I'm not the anti-Google, but I'm hardly alone in watching UC choose this
>route and wondering what it means to OCA, let alone what it means to the
>user, let alone what it means to the future of information, particularly
>when content is sole-sourced in a commercial digital repository that has
>been around for less than a decade.
>
>Karen G. Schneider
>kgs at bluehighways.com
>
>
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