[ARSCLIST] "Google says it's just improving card catalogs" (fwd)

[Karl Miller <lyaa071@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

And more on business taking up the business of libraries...this time,
perhaps leading to a solution of the problems of cataloging?

Karl

October 13, 2005




Google Says It's Just Improving Card Catalogs

Google officials are on a press tour trying to clarify details of the
company's controversial library-scanning project. Jim Gerber, director of
content partnerships at Google, and Nathan Tyler, a public relations
manager, stopped by The Chronicle's office today to present a PowerPoint
presentation about their projects and to answer questions. They compared
the vast, full-text index of millions of books that Google is building to a
library card catalog -- a finding tool to locate the right book rather than
a library of its own. "It's a more powerful version of the card catalog,"
said Mr. Gerber.

Many publishers have been critical of Google's project, in which it will
scan nearly every book at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor's
library, as well as thousands of books in four other major libraries.
Critics say that the search company must get permission from the copyright
holder of any book before scanning the work. But Google officials have
stressed that they will make only short snippets available for books that
are under copyright, unless they have permission to display more. Mr.
Gerber said that those search results will mainly serve as a card-catalog
entry, except that users can be sure that their search term is in fact
included in the book. And, he noted, libraries do not need to seek
publishers' permission to compile card catalogs.

Posted on October 13, 2005 at 03:48 PM |
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