Peter Brantley is the director of strategic technology for academic information systems at the University of California, one of the premier libraries that have entered into a relationship with Google to digitize their holdings.
Here is some of what he had to say about the initiative:
-it was mistake
-The goal is undeniably grand, and good.
The means have left much to be desired.
-We poisoned our hand before we played it
-For the love of selfish confidence, we spoke neither our fortune nor our misgivings with our neighbors or our friends
-In our selfishness, and wrapped in the fears we were given, we re-wrote and redefined our aims, misplaced our responsibilities, allowed the light and glory of the ideal to suffuse its glow over the bargain’s deficits
-The deals are not fair. We were taken advantage of. We are asked to be grateful for something wondrous where we could have achieved more for ourselves and demanded more from others
-There are bigger things yet to lose, and the losing, we have learned, is easy.
He went on to proclaim that it is not to late to “re-write the rules for the future…for us – libraries, museums, and non-profit presses – to reassert the validity of our aims, our missions, and our expectations”
Clearly this is far from a match made in heaven. One can only imagine the response to this from the Google monster and the university’s administration. Five days later Brantley chimed in again. His need this time was to clarify his stance a bit. He did the Google isn’t evil routine and stated that his “primary intent in the post is to suggest disappointment with libraries (not with Google). I felt that there was much to be gained — and I still feel very strongly so — from union, collaboration, and sharing among libraries of the immense issues raised by this effort”
This brings us to another recent related development that needs some attention.
On Tuesday James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress, testified before the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Legislative Branch . He urged Congress to restore the $47 million cut from the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP). The $47 million represents almost 50% of the total budget for the program. The $47 million does not include $37 million in matching funds that would be lost due to the cuts.
One of the new NDIIPP projects affected by the cuts was Preserving Creative America “an effort to work with private industry to archive creative content such as “digital film, music, photography, other forms of pictorial art and even video games.”
also Billington reported that the Library of Congress “is progressing in its initiative to build a World Digital Library (WDL).” This is the program the just received the a $3 million grant from Google to start the project.”
Billington acknowledges that searchers can find a “flood of information” on Google but he goes on to say that at the Library of Congress:
“Our goal is to integrate the best available electronic information into the knowledge, judgment and wisdom contained in books and in the minds of our curators so that Congress and the American people continue getting the same authentic, reliable information and knowledge that have been the hallmark of the Library since its inception in 1800.”
Here is a link to the Senators on the subcommittee. Contact them.
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Digital Battle For Our Literary Heritage
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Thanks to Open Access for the Brantley lead and to Rare Book News for the lead on the Billington testimony