Apart from the text does Google Book Search really have anything to do with the life of a book?I am not so sure.As Paul Duguid points out in his illuminating piece Inheritence and loss? A brief survey of Google Books:"Even with some of the best search and scanning technology in the world behind you, it is unwise to ignore the bookish character of books."Using Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy as his book of choice Duguid exposes some major quality control issues inherent in Google's digitization process. From missing pages to poorly scanned pages to the complete absence of vital data (like...
Google Book Search: A Report From the "Google Five"
The first five libraries that jumped on the Google digital book train took time at the recent ALA Annual Conference to weigh in on how things are going. The Google Five are the libraries of Harvard, Oxford, Michigan and Stanford and the New York Public Library.Though all five said that they were "pleased with the progress" they also acknowledged that there have been some issues, which range from books being damaged to questions about the quality of searches being performed. One library had someone complain because some of the scans have thumbs visible! And over at Oxford's Bodleian Library they...
The Hunt Is On In the U.K.
The public libraries of the United Kingdom are on a treasure hunt.The goal:To find the coolest item in their collection that has yet to be digitized and enter it into a contest being run by the British Library.The contest is sponsored by the British Library with financial support coming from Microsoft.If a particular library doesn't feel they have anything worthy they can they include "local partners such as museums, archives, churches or stately homes" to come up with their submission.Finalists will be "invited to a high-profile awards ceremony at the British Library."There will be one winner for each part of...
Google, The Big Ten and Digital Escrow
In on fell swoop Google has significantly increased the number of libraries they have under contract and has introduced a new species of digitization; digital escrow.By corralling the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), a consortium of the libraries of the Big Ten and the University of Chicago, Goggle brings the number of partner libraries to 25 and add over 78,000,000 potential items to their digi-mix.Some of terms of the agreement:-The CIC makes at least a 10,000,000 volume commitment.-Google "reserves final discretion over which Available Content it will Digitize."-Google shall own all rights to their copy and can use it at...
The EPA Library Crisis Returns
On April 26th Congress sent a letter to the EPA to check in on them. They wanted to follow up and make sure that they are complying with their "commitment not to close any additional EPA libraries and not to dispose of any additional EPA materials"Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a non-profit national alliance of local state and federal resource professionals and the premier watchdog group on this issue, issued a press release on May 2 titled "EPA Quietly Resumes Dismantling Library System,"They cite an 'interim policies' document released by the EPA on April 10th which lays out procedures...