[Web4lib] A Library to Last Forever - NY Times OpEd piece on GoogleBook Search

[Engwall, Keith D]

Woops!!! Correction: I find it hard to believe BOTH Mr. Brin AND the NY Times editorial
staff are completely ignorant of the concept of Interlibrary Loan.

Heh.. sorry about that!

Keith Engwall
Head of Library Systems and Technology
Catawba College Library
kengwall at catawba.edu
http://www.lib.catawba.edu

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.  Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read.
-- Groucho Marx


----- Original Message -----
From: "Engwall, Keith D" <kengwall at catawba.edu>
Sent: Mon, 10/12/2009 9:26am
To: K.G. Schneider <kgs at bluehighways.com> ; 'B.G. Sloan' <bgsloan2 at yahoo.com> ; web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: Re: [Web4lib] A Library to Last Forever - NY Times OpEd piece on GoogleBook Search

Sadly, it's not so much that they're too big to be fact-checked but rather that facts are no longer deemed relevant.  Take another example from the same article -- the necessity to fly to distant libraries to acquire long lost tomes, nearly eliciting images of a little red line moving along a map and a grizzled patron with perfunctory fedora and whip -- I find it hard to believe neither Mr. Brin nor the NY Times editorial staff are completely ignorant of the concept of Interlibrary Loan.

But this follows a distinct societal trend away from honest, thoughtful discourse in favor of marketing -- simply making an argument for the sake of how well it will track with the target audience or how much attention it will garner -- without regard for accuracy or fear of correction.  Since, as far as public perception is concerned, there are no "reliable sources" anymore (and can you blame them? Even the NY Times will publish a glorified corporate press release and call it an Op Ed article), all sources become suspect and people simply fall in line behind whichever voice they find to be most compelling.

How's that for a cheery thought on a Monday morning?

Keith Engwall
Head of Library Systems and Technology
Catawba College Library
kengwall at catawba.edu
http://www.lib.catawba.edu

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.  Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read.
-- Groucho Marx


----- Original Message -----
From: K.G. Schneider <kgs at bluehighways.com>
Sent: Sat, 10/10/2009 7:21am
To: 'B.G. Sloan' <bgsloan2 at yahoo.com> ; web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: Re: [Web4lib] A Library to Last Forever - NY Times OpEd piece on GoogleBook Search

> Sergey Brin, co-founder and technology president of Google, has an opinion
> piece on Google Book Search in the NY Times:
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/opinion/09brin.html
> 
> Bernie Sloan
> 

As I've pointed out in other forums (Twitter, Facebook), you can kibosh the
tearjerking example of the Stanford report that is no more with a quick
WorldCat search, which surfaces 4 copies. Since WorldCat is a subset of
all-the-books-that-are, it's possible there are even more copies than that.
I don't dispute the reality that books disappear and digitization is
important (by... someone...), but it's a pretty amazing thing to be too big
to be fact-checked.

Karen G. Schneider



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