I think the legal risks are probably the deciding factor, more so than
not wanting to expend the resources or not seeing the ability to
profit. I know plenty of libraries expending plenty of resources to
scan out-of-copyright materials, but from a management perspective
it's much easier to budget for the known costs of a scanner, some
folks to operate them, and a few servers than it is to budget for the
possibility of losing a multi-million dollar copyright lawsuit.
Julia
On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 9:10 AM, Cindy Harper <charper_at_colgate.edu> wrote:
> 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 - 13:02:11 EDT