An older Open Source episode on Google Print Seems to me, a large part of the discussion had to abou [...]

An older Open Source episode on Google Print
Seems to me, a large part of the discussion had to about two distinct and fairly incompatible “worldviews,” or more precisely in this case, two ways to see the realities of information and knowle…

If you have a long journey home then download this great 1hr podcast on the Google book project. It is a good discussion and covers some essential [...]

I can imagine a portal like this, designed to truly search and organize the world’s books. Obviously part of it would rely on GBS, but it would also include links to libraries, to Amazon.com and other booksellers, to book reviewers, to blogs discussing that book, to Library of Congress catalog information — the possibilities are truly quite extensive. This sort of layered, value-added information, that would build on the foundation of GBS, but go well beyond it, is the sort of thing I imagine libraries providing. I guess I see what Google is doing is building a basic layer that can be built upon, analagous to the way that Google Maps has led to a whole host of useful, online mapping applications.

Now, this does nothing to address concerns about privacy and stability — but still, I have to admit that I would like to see the conversation turn a bit more towards how to use this information and access that Google is generating in creative and transformative ways.

cmadsen touched on something I tried to say during the program: Google Book Search ain’t the only game in town. Let me repeat some words and phrases that need to infiltrate the ideasphere: Open Content Alliance, RedLightGreen, Open Worldcat… there are many digitization projects going on, and some interesting tools that could work well with them. Google may want to be the only game in town, but they will only be if we let them. If they don’t drown out the competition, then they are but one project among many, and that’s a Good Thing. It’s the monopolistic nature of the program (and on my blog, Free Range Librarian, I have commented on how a GBS page for a copyrighted book doesn’t mention that the book is freely available in libraries–information readily available through RedLightGreen and Open Worldcat).

Also, I’m so glad we got to talk about libraries on the radio. Siva’s comments were great and I only piggybacked on them, but there isn’t enough appreciation among the digirati for the role of the public information space. I really mean it when I say a search engine isn’t going to read a story to a child, teach an immigrant how to use Microsoft Office, or offer cozy armchairs and free wifi in a setting that is by the people, for the people.

Additionally, librarians need to meet the world halfway. The libraries that think their job is to be 19th-century book depositories, and not to be information cathedrals, will die, and deservedly so. Library 2.0 is a discussion going on now about libraries responding to next-gen ideas of service. That would be a whole talk in itself.

Yes, they are two different practices. At the same time, both are clearly necessary and important resources, and Google’s attempts to extend their web index to the “dead tree” world, so to speak, does not have to be seen as a replacement for the organization that libraries and universities do. It would be disastrous if Google replaced libraries, but Google Book Search in addition to libraries is better than libraries alone.

We will never digitize as much as google, nor would we want to. But we take steps to make sure that what we digitize is faithful to the original and that it is of the highest quality possible.

I completely agree with what Siva said about Google’s mission. They claim to be organizing the world’s information, but what they are really doing is indexing it. These are two very different practices.

December 6th, 2005
Randy Dykhuis

Fascinating discussion about the Google Book Search project on the PRI show Open Source. Guests included Siva Va [...]