And http://hathitrust.org <%20http://hathitrust.org>. And the answer is
that corporate capitalism provides a path for shareholders to bet on Google
et al., but the funders of libraries, public and private, are not betting on
a profit from libraries. Maybe we can get some of Gates' money?
Cindy Harper, Systems Librarian
Colgate University Libraries
charper_at_colgate.edu
315-228-7363
On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 9:53 AM, Michele Newberry <fclmin_at_ufl.edu> wrote:
> Joe,
> It is being done. See http://www.opencontentalliance.org/
> However, IMHO, there isn't a critical mass of libraries willing to expend
> the resources to do this in a way that can keep up with the volume the
> Google is handling. Or to take on the legal challenges.
>
> - Michele
>
>
> On 7/1/2010 9:40 AM, Montibello, Joseph P. wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>>
>>
>> Stephen Paling wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> "To put it a bit differently, what I want is ~in~ the document, not next
>> to it as a surrogate. The amount of information that is available online
>> now dwarfs the information available in print, and searching within
>> those online resources is typically far more useful to me."
>>
>>
>>
>> I know this is a dumb question but I'll ask it anyway. How come Google
>> can scan books (that they get from libraries??!?) and make a huge
>> database out of it and make a ton of money off of it (not yet, but does
>> anyone think they won't?) - but libraries can't?
>>
>>
>>
>> <overdramatic but you know what I mean> I think it's because we can't
>> get organized. We want MARC or FRBR or RDA or whatever. And after all
>> the fields have been decided on, we want a fully developed, working tool
>> to hop out of the grass. Then we want "other libraries" to use it for a
>> year or two to work out all the kinks, and then we'll be ready to form a
>> committee to examine whether this new tool will work for our users in
>> our specific environment.</obykwim>
>>
>>
>>
>> What if we scanned all those books for our own bad selves? What if we
>> ripped off Google's idea of making searches against full-text? This
>> would answer Stephen's need to find things in the book - a need that
>> librarians know about. (I regularly tell students that what they need to
>> do is go upstairs, get the book off the shelf, and then look at the
>> table of contents and index to see if the thing they're interested in is
>> covered in the book.) So we can't offer the full text of books because
>> of copyright issues (Google cut that Gordian knot, but anyway).
>> Wouldn't it help to be able to offer a clue that a specific topic, that
>> might not be a chapter heading or a book title or any other piece of
>> metadata that we would reasonably expect to create, but that is in the
>> text, is in the text? Wouldn't it help to offer a page preview that
>> shows (in a paragraph or two) someplace that the book was mentioned?
>>
>>
>> Instead of sharing metadata through OCLC, what if we shared digital
>> copies of books? Upload when you're done scanning, download when you
>> buy a copy of a physical book, edit when someone made a crappy scan on
>> page 32 and you can do a better one, etc? Then those scanned, uploaded,
>> downloaded books became part of our search index, like in Google books,
>> with limited previews or full text or as much as we can get away with?
>>
>>
>>
>> Joe Montibello, MLIS
>>
>> Class of 1945 Library
>>
>> Phillips Exeter Academy
>>
>> Web: http://www.exeter.edu/library<http://www.exeter.edu/library>
>>
>> Blog: http://academylibrary.wordpress.com
>> <http://academylibrary.wordpress.com/>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> ~NOTE EMAIL ADDRESS CHANGE TO FCLMIN_at_UFL.EDU~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Michele Newberry Assistant Director for Library Services
> Florida Center for Library Automation 352-392-9020
> 5830 NW 39th Avenue 352-392-9185 (fax)
> Gainesville, FL 32606 fclmin_at_ufl.edu
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
Received on Thu Jul 01 2010 - 10:12:31 EDT