Google Gears Up to Resume Book Scanning
It’s November 1st, the day Google said they would resume scanning books of all types (including in-copyright materials) from the five libraries they’re working with. Adam Smith, Senior Business Product Manager, Google Print, reports on the Official Google Blog that the company is, “…in the process of resuming scanning (it may take a little time)…” Kudos to Adam for explaining the important differences (something we’ve also tried to do on our blog) between Google Print for Publishers and Google Print Library Project. I think it’s important to understand the differences.
As you likely know, Google Print is also the focus of two lawsuits:
+ Association of American Publishers Sues Google over Library Digitization Plan
+ Google’s Library Scanning Project Heads to Court (Authors Guild)
Btw, Adam Smith was also a featured speaker at the Internet Librarian conference last week in Monterey, California. You can find some of his comments on these blog posts from InfoToday.
+ The Google-brary in 2020
+ Dualing Keynotes…And a Third
+ A Picture of Adam Answering a Question
Finally, two quick points.
First, in this post I point out that library catalogs of today (2005) are not the card catalogs many people still think of.
Second, and somewhat unrelated note, I just want to point out how I’m continuing to be impressed with Amazon’s “Search Inside the Book Program (SITB)” and the extra info it provides for many (not all) books. Btw, you can keyword search books available through SITB via A9.
Postscript: These two posts and the papers they link to might be of interest to some of you:
+ Breaking Down The Google Print 5 Libraries
+ The Google Print Library Project: A Copyright Analysis (via Association of Research Libraries)