Some librarians on Google Library

Kevin J. Delaney and Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, Google Will Return to Scanning Copyrighted Library Books, Wall Street Journal, November 1, 2005. Excerpt:

Google's resumption of its scanning of copyrighted works comes amid heated debate in the library community over participation in the program. "We believe the Google project is a good and right thing, and that our participation is consistent with our role as an educational institution," said Andrew Herkovic, director of communications and development at the Stanford University Libraries. Stanford has provided Google with volumes that are in the public domain, but Mr. Herkovic declined to say whether the university has also provided copyrighted material to Google. Other librarians say that what matters most is that people have as much access to information as possible. "We think that what Google is doing is legal and consistent with copyright law because copyright law is about striking a balance between the limited rights of the copyright owner and the long-term rights of the public," said John Wilkin, associate university librarian at the University of Michigan, which is making an estimated seven million volumes available. But Google's actions have raised concerns among some librarians uneasy with the idea of creating ill will with publishers and authors. "In general I think that libraries need to observe copyright," said Tom Garnett, assistant director for Digital Library and Information Systems at the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, which are the libraries serving the Smithsonian Institution. Mr. Garnett said that the Smithsonian Institution Libraries will maintain a conservative stance until the disputes are resolved. Other librarians are more strongly opposed to the Google project. "I feel that this is a potential disaster on several levels," said Michael Gorman, president of the American Library Association and university librarian at California State University, Fresno. "They are reducing scholarly texts to paragraphs. The point of a scholarly text is they are written to be read sequentially from beginning to end, making an argument and engaging you in dialogue." Mr. Gorman, who said the American Library Association doesn't have an official position on the subject, described Google's argument that Web users will be able to look at several snippets and then decide whether they want to buy or read the book as "ridiculous." Further, he noted that as a published author, he opposes Google's intention to build an enormous database that includes copyrighted texts. "It's a flaunting of my intellectual property rights," he said.

(PS: Note to Michael Gorman. Google isn't "reducing" books to paragraphs. It's copying full-text and displaying short snippets in response to specific searches in order to help users decide when a book is relevant to their research. No one, least of all Google, is recommending that researchers rely on those snippets to do what only a full read could do. When Google has permission to display full text instead of mere snippets, it does so. And the word is "flout", not "flaunt".)