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April 13, 2005
Coalition for Networked Information, Washington, DC, April 4-5, 2005
Last week University Librarian Joanne Eustis and I attended the semi-annual meeting of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) in Washington, DC. These meetings always feature a wide array of updates on what libraries are doing in the way of networked information and digital library projects. They also always feature sessions on emerging technologies and standards as well as some thought provoking sessions that may not have immediate applicability to libraries.
The opening plenary session of last week's meeting featured representatives from the so-called "Google Five" -- the libraries with whom Google has negotiated agreements to digitize all or large parts of their libraries. These libraries are Stanford, Harvard, University of Michigan, New York Public Library and Oxford University's Bodleian Library. A press release about Oxford's arrangement can be found here. Information about Stanford's project is here.
The libraries are all under strict non-disclosure agreements with Google, so there was not a wealth of information divulged. The amount of material to be digitized at the libraries seems to range from "pretty much everything" at Michigan to "a tasty selection in the tens of thousands of volumes" at New York Public. It was clear that Google had done a "divide and conquer" move with these libraries, in that they each did not know who else was involved in negotiations until they read it in the news release.
It appears that Google will give the libraries preservation-level copies of the digital images that are created as part of the project. This will run into many terabytes of information, for which the libraries do not yet have a clear plan as to how they will be used. Harvard and NYPL seemed the most cautious.
For all of the massive marketing splash that Google made with this announcement, there seems to be no doubt that for the foreseeable future, Google's plan to include some unknown part of this full-text material in their database will not radically affect libraries or the need for libraries to continue digitization of their own materials. When someone says, "When is Google going to have all the books in the work?" you can honestly answer, "No time soon."
Posted by tdr at April 13, 2005 02:32 PM
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