The Travelin' Librarian: IL05: Wednesday Keynote

Google Print: Making the Virtual World Real

Rich Wiggins, Michigan State University

Cartoon: Why Google must never be bought by Microsoft
The idea: The library of congress metaphor

Schoolgirl in Carthage, TN accessing the contents of LoC (Al Gore)

Other projects

Small group of items, digitize it all
Words & songs of Woddie Guthrie
Library of the first ladies
Worthwhile

Extends access to all web users
Preserves fragile content

Why not all of LoC?

LoC numbers

What are you measuring
What resolution
What color depth
What format

LoC books only

20-28 million itmes
2-7 million unqiqe bound volumes
17-20 terabytes

The idea

Disk is cheap
Digital imaging is getting cheaper
Broadband is relatively cheap
Labor can be relatively cheap

Automation can help

The germ of the idea

Technology is rapidly improving
Flatbed scanner is the wrong tool

Cost

Aprox 0.05 or 0.01 per page/image
$10-12/hour labor, mileage, meals, lodging

Digitize the LoC

Aprox $2.5 billion dollars

Getting better and faster
Digitize it now, OCR on demand

Storage costs are plummeting

RAID arrays
Under 50 cents per gigabyte

Inventory/cataloging costs

Physical shelf space, $40/item
If it’s worth purchasing, it’s worth digitizing

Barrier: Rights Management

Once digitized, can we deliver it?
The paradox of latent value
Aprox 1/3 of LoC print collection is now in the public domain

Barrier: “The benefit doesn’t justify the cost”

It’s more cost effective to digitize everything than “just the good stuff”

Encourages preservation

Deacidification
Fire, digital is backup

Benefit: access
Benefit: Improved digitizing technology

The “ideal” book scanner

Benefit: Standards

Open XML
Cross document metadata

Benefits: Large-Scale Rights Management

20 million volume collection will force the issue of fair use
Today, Disney defines fair use

Digital library projects: Think Big!

Google project teaches this

Apollo Program Analogy
Google’s vision will be realized by a forward thinking company and not the government
Why trust Google

They’re smart
They’re agile and innovative
They show no fear
They’re worth $100 billion
They won’t do this alone

Google: Catalyst for Digitization or Library Destruction?

Roy Tennant

Roy: More access is better. Easier access is better. There’s more room for players and that’s a good thing. It’s good that Google is digitizing things. There’s room for everyone to be involved.

Cartoon: Google, Devil or Merely Evil?
Scary monster #1: A Copyright Cataclysm

Libraries have long enjoyed “fair use” protection
Google’s attempt to shield themselves under fair use may ruin it for us all

Scary monster #2: Closed Access to Open Material

They’re probably going to fix this problem
Google print copies are locked to certain ones from certain publishers
Public domain books are locked into showing just a certain number of pages
Link to buy book but no link to the library

Scary monster #3: Blind Wholesale Digitization

Large research collections are not weeded by policy
“We keep all kinds of crap”
Outdated material
“no more a good thing than buying books based on color”
Copyright will restrict access to up-to-date, recent material
Users will end up with the old crap since it’s more available
Open Content Alliance is focusing on collections

Scary monster #4: Ads

Most g]Google profit coming from ads
Needs eyeballs
Ads for antidepressants next to Hamlet
Viagra next to Lolita
They’re responsible to their stockholders, not the public

Scary monster #5: Secrecy

Agreements between Google and libraries have mostly been kept secret
The libraries could not talk to each other
U of Mich revealed after FOIA request
OCA is more open
Rumors indicate UM has best agreement from lib perspective, others have less favorable agreements
But we don’t know, nobody’s talking