[Web4lib] Google Allows Downloads of out-of-copyright Books

[Jonathan Gorman]

> As for the poster who pointed out in the books have this same
> limitation -- well, as long as we are using computers, we should
> be trying to improve on the limitations.

To make my point clearer, these books should be able to be addressed by 
the same measures libraries are already taking to serve patrons in the 
real world.  We shouldn't be waiting for Google to do it for us.  To turn 
down or not point out resources to patrons online because they don't meet 
criteria that we would not hold for our own services seems suspect.  The 
question that I was responding to was the suggestion that perhaps we 
should not recommend Google books to people due to accessibility issues.


> Technologically it is
> not that difficult.

I'm skeptical of this.  I've followed OCR on and off again out of my own 
interest over the last few years.  To be able to handle nearly any book 
pre-1923 with a reasonable error rate is a bit tricky.  Even if the 
rate is really good, most projects I have seen require human 
effort and pre-processing to get these rates.  I'd be glad to be proven 
wrong here.

If you realize that if a patron with a disability came to you with a real 
book and you couldn't help them, there's a deeper problem.  If the answer 
is to rely on a scanning the book and use software to do text-speech 
translation, then Google at least saved you a step.  Of course, no one has 
answered my previous question about if the quality of scans are good 
enough to do this with.

If I was a patron and was trying to find a certain book and the only 
version the librarian could find was a Google one, I'd want to know about 
it.  Even if I would need assistance to read it, I'd want the chance to 
make that decision for myself.  Another twist.  Say I'm looking for the 
contents of a famous radio broadcast.  The librarian can't find a 
transcript, but finds an audio version of the actual speech.  Even if I 
have hearing issues, I can still find or pay someone to transcribe it for 
me.

Also, hopefully the current state of digitization coming from this project 
is a first step.  Even if Google doesn't help, other projects will build 
off of where Google and the various libraries have started.  Soon we'll 
have text versions of these files and audio versions.  Of course, I might 
just be a dreamer.  I agree with your point, we all should be trying to 
improve on these things.



Jonathan T. Gorman
Research Information Specialist
University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana
216 Main Library - MC522
1408 West Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: (217) 244-4688