If you actually visit the library archives working with Google, you should be able to find out that what was promised is not an entirely true case when it comes to reality. . .at least in POV of the librarians who will speak to you freely. Of course, I will also be the first to admit that you can get a number of librarians from the same institution who will say all is perfectly well. But it's not perfect. . .not down at the lower level realities, not where the rubber meets the road. I do note that the ones who say all is well and dandy are those with political and academic aspirations, and those who tell you things are not what they should be are more street level. We have plenty of both here at the University of Illinois. ;=) On Fri, 5 Mar 2010, Juliet Sutherland wrote:
On 3/3/2010 1:24 PM, Jim Adcock wrote:
The question is, in my mind, is Google preserving the books, and doing so for the public good or not? I suspect when Google digitizes the book the original is then trashed by the college library -- the whole point being they do not want to have to pay to maintain physical library books in various states of decay. Google then becomes the sole repository for this information -- excepting a smallish number of copies at TIA.
This is absolutely not true. First of all, part of every agreement between a library and Google is that the library gets a copy of all the scans that Google makes. Depending on the exact contract, there may or may not be some restrictions on what the library can do with the scans, but they definitely get them.
Further, the libraries do not get rid of the books. In fact, they are very protective of their books, which is why a face-up, human controlled scanning method is used (thus resulting in the occasional hand or finger in the scan). All books are returned to the libraries with as little wear as possible. For logistical reasons, both Google and the Internet Archive started with books that were in off-site repositories, but those repositories are not being removed. The librarians in charge of the scanning projects all understand that what Google is providing is a search tool, not preservation. The Internet Archive is much closer to doing archival quality work, but the libraries are still keeping the books. Remember, these librarians were burned by the promise of microfilm and microfiche as more compact storage formats for periodicals and such.
A bunch of major libraries have put together a consortium called the Hathi Trust which has the explicit purpose of making sure that book scans are not lost. It provides off-site, secure storage for what the participant libraries want to put there. This includes the libraries' copies of the Google scans, as well as whatever else they decide to include. The last I was aware, the Hathi Trust did not do much, if anything, to provide public access to those scans, since that is not its purpose. I mention it here only to make folks aware that the libraries are making provision for storage even if places like Google, the Internet Archive, or, indeed, one of their own members, should disappear.
I now return you to your arguments about DP.
Juliet Sutherland _______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d