Patrick's underlying point is vaild. Google is a for-profit corporation, and there is no guarantee they won't pull the plug at some point in the future. But isn't this also the case with other commercial library partners?
But I don't buy into the "you, personally, will get blamed" argument. I've seen university administrators pour millions of dollars into questionable projects. I'm thinking of a specific project, which will go nameless, where a university invested $10 million in an endeavor despite warnings from some knowledgeable people. The administrators operated under a sort of "if you build it, they will come" mentality. The project failed miserably, but the administrators came out of it none the worse for the wear.
Also, administrators at higher levels can be quite adept at finding scapegoats to throw under the bus. :-)
Bernie Sloan
--- On Thu, 10/8/09, Cates, Patrick <cates_at_GTS.EDU> wrote:
From: Cates, Patrick <cates_at_GTS.EDU>
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Hard questions and Google Book Search
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Date: Thursday, October 8, 2009, 9:40 AM
> "How would you reply to a non-librarian administrator who asks 'We just paid $xx,xxx dollars to Google for access to millions of e-books. Why do we need to keep buying books for the library?'"
How about "If GBS doesn't make Google a bunch of money, or if Google
loses interest in favor of chasing the next biggest-thing-evar, the
library--and this institution--will have a rather big, expensive hole
to fill. And you, personally, will get blamed." But that won't
happen, right?
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/10/usenet/
Patrick Cates
Technical Services Librarian
St. Mark's Library
General Theological Seminary
175 Ninth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
212-243-5150 x354
Received on Thu Oct 08 2009 - 15:01:25 EDT