Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
<snip>
In all of this, Google as such is taken for granted. Yet it is a
complete novelty in the history of civilization, a momentous one, in
existence for a mere 10 years. By now, who doesn't yet depend on it
for their activities and their businesses? Is there any risk analysis,
for Google the company but also for their users? Does anyone have a
Plan B for the case of a Google blackout?
</snip>
This is a genuine danger, "trusting" a new organization with such important matters should give people pause. Google's motto has been "Don't be evil" but after all, they are a major corporation, where the watchword not too long ago was Gordon Gekko's "Greed is good". It's not impossible to imagine they could change mottos--without telling anybody. Although it is difficult to imagine "life without Google" today, it was just as difficult to imagine "life with Google" back in the 1980s. A lot has happened.
Dealing with these concerns, you may be interested in Robert Darnton's "The Library: Three Jeremiads" http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/dec/23/library-three-jeremiads/ in the newest NY Review of Books, where he discusses his idea of a "Digital Public Library of America", creating something similar to Europeana, probably based at first on HathiTrust and perhaps some cooperation from Google, to get some level of insurance for the public. I hope something like this is enacted.
James Weinheimer j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu
Director of Library and Information Services
The American University of Rome
via Pietro Roselli, 4
00153 Rome, Italy
voice- 011 39 06 58330919 ext. 258
fax-011 39 06 58330992
First Thus: http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
Cooperative Cataloging Rules: http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
Received on Tue Dec 07 2010 - 05:29:41 EST