The main issue for me on GBS was that I assumed the covers were
scanned or collected by Google. If so, they'd have no reason to sell
them. Something like the market for cover images in OPACs is too small
for them to care about. But they weren't theirs, or so it seems.
On free covers, the main problem is bandwidth and processing. We have
the infrastructure ready—indeed it's used on the site—but were also
straining at the limits of our servers right now. Providing a
completely free service, scaling and rescaling millions of covers is a
hard sell for a small startup with two web servers and limited
bandwidth. We might make them available in exchange for links, or
something.
Some months ago we did, however, turn over all our covers—anyway, what
we had at the time—to the Internet Archive, for them to make them
available. I don't know what's become of that.
Tim
On Fri, Jun 6, 2008 at 4:41 PM, Jonathan Rochkind <rochkind_at_jhu.edu> wrote:
> Yeah, it doesn't surprise me.
>
> When I heard the GBS staff say in the Talis interview that she had no
> opinion and nothing to say about whether GBS terms of service allowed
> cover usage, and had no reason to think that the terms of service denied
> it.... I figured, hey, just a matter of time until someone corrects
> that record.
>
> So sad.
>
> So what do we need to do to create a free source of covers? Tim, what
> happened to your coverthing plan that you were enticing us with for a while?
>
> Jonathan
>
> Tim Spalding wrote:
>>
>> I just posted something important about the GBS API on the Thingology
>> blog:
>>
>> http://www.librarything.com/thingology/2008/06/covers-from-google-too-good-to-be-true.php
>>
>> Basically, I've been told that I was wrong to promote the use of GBS
>> for covers in an OPAC, that the covers were licensed from a cover
>> supplier—ten guesses!—and should not have allowed this, and that the
>> new GBS API terms of service put the kibosh on the use I promoted.
>>
>> I'm a big proponent of free covers. I think selling covers is going to
>> go away soon. But I do think it's important to respect terms, when
>> they are legal. And personally, I'm very uncertain what's allowed and
>> what's not.
>>
>> And I would like to get the heck out of the issue, thank you very much!
>>
>> Tim
>>
>>
>
> --
> Jonathan Rochkind
> Digital Services Software Engineer
> The Sheridan Libraries
> Johns Hopkins University
> 410.516.8886
> rochkind (at) jhu.edu
>
--
Check out my library at http://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding
Received on Fri Jun 06 2008 - 15:29:22 EDT