Slashdot Mirror
European Libraries Counter Google Digitisation
headisdead writes "A week after Google substantially improved their UK site, Deutsche-Welle carry the story that the a whole host of large European libraries (with the British Library's tacit support) have joined an EU-based digitisation project as a counter to Google's own library scheme. The project is the brainchild of BNF director Jean-Noel Jeanneney, a sort of mild-mannered Jose Bove for the librarians out there. Divisive pride, or healthy competition?"
I thin kthe main thing is that all these works will be preserved digitally, open for people to read whenever they want to. Anybody saying that this is a bad thing is just a hopeless google fanboi.
Making the moon less necessary since 1998.
The libraries are making their content more accessible? Can it be bad?
Hold on a minute... I think we're missing the point. If Goooooogle or anyone else happens to overtake the public libraries in popularity or usefulness, it is quite likely that the information available will suddenly become subject to what advertisers will pay for, and will turn in to a "top 40" of public information rather than a collected works of all public information.
If public libraries use their funds to assist each other in digitally making available all public information without regard to what is possible, then we have a GREAT thing, but when the sum total of that body of knowledge and history is governed by someone trying to make money, we, as a society, WILL lose in the end.
Its NOT about how you get the information or how it is stored... its about WHO is in charge of that information and what their motives are...
Sadly, capitalism is not good for everything...
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
I don't understand how this is considered "counter" or anti-google by opening up a similar service.
It seems that a lot of people around here want google to have a monopoly since it's good(tm) and microsoft is a bad(tm) monopoly. (Not that I'm a fan of MS).
All monopolies are bad, and there should be a free and open market. For all you know, this could be better than google's interface.
Its amazing that something so great exists in this world! The glorious idea of capitalism!
Sometimes people's inability to put things into perspective and understand there is a world outside the good old US of A makes me despair.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Mod me down if you wish, but I have to say that I found Google Print nice, but not too useful. Sure, it's a nice thing that you can search through paper books, but in most cases you can't actually read them; you have to buy them, and this even goes for classics such as "20,000 leagues under the sea" which are already digitized by Project Gutenberg or similar organizations: Google digitizes newer, copyrighted editions even when there are older, public domain editions available. Thus, in my eyes Google Print is little more than a marketing door for on-line bookstores.
On the other hand, French digitalization project Gallica, though sometimes mocked on Slashdot, not only digitizes books, but gives the scans away freely (as in speech), so everyone can read the books in entirety or use them as they please. Both Distributed Proofreaders and Distributed Proofreaders Europe already use Gallica scans to produce completely digitized and free e-books which you can search, read, datamine, or do with them anything that suits you. If Slashdot readers are supporters of free software, this too is something they should revere.
I hope that Europeans will not compete with Google. I hope that they will make bigger, better, and more diverse Gallica.
Libraries in the US are getting closer to censorship than ever. Take for example this new Alabama Bill targeting Gay Authors from an elected Republican representative in the state legislature, Gerald "book-burying " Allen. Consider other minor incidents like the New Mexico Book burning party . Can you spot a trend?
.
Google already succumbed to China censorship pressures. Would they resist censorship pressures from the Christian right, inside the US? Yea, right, just like Microsoft did
Don't fool yourself, folks. US companies are no longer a reliable for such a task. If Google is allow t create another de facto monopoly in Library Search, we risk gay books, Evolution volumes or the freaking Harry Potter adventures disappearing anytime now.
Let me ask you, who's going to preserve Western Culture heritage if the US completes it's path towards fascism bushflash.com/14.html? India!? The Chinese!!? Well, apparently it's going to be the French. Good for them.
It depends on what "accessible" means. I think these guys misunderstood the motivation behind Google's effort. Google is here to organise information - not to provide it: Google Print is only there to allow you to find books that match your searches, not to read them.
Try just about any book search on Google, even about old ones. Try Austen's Sense and Sensibility. Try Hobbes' Leviathan. Whatever. Google Print will point you to a modern, copyrighted edition of the book. You will only be able to browse a few pages.
Contrast with the Gallica project at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France: thousands of digitised books, freely accessible from beginning to end, most in scanned image format, but many in full ASCII text. And Gallica is much older than Google Print (in Internet time it's about one or two generations older), though not as old as the Gutenberg project.
Judging from his language, the French dude seems to think that Google Print is a scaled-up, English-language Gallica. It isn't. But if European libraries get their act together and start a project to make literally millions of books freely accessible for all in all European languages, hey, I'm all for it !
Thomas-
Oh Great American Lord,
I apologize to be the small european insect I am.
Please continue to show me the way to the True-Way-Of-Life.
How to make war to the rest of the world.
How to destroy the eco-system as much as possible.
How to elect stupid arrogant bastards.
How to venere our Lord the Market.
How to refute silly theory like Darwinism, etc. and be true biggots.
How to give weapons to our child so they can be mass murderers.
And, most of all, how to give lessons to everyone without the slightest doubt.
Amen.
Et, tant que t'y est , VTDLC, gros bouffon.
Well i'm not French, i'm Belgian. I'm frenchspeaker. The sad thing about this project is that "once again" a French official found a way to put some "Anti-american" bashings in his speech. I'm fed up by their rethoric. It looks more and more like xenophoby to me. The French "elites" have a great problem with the US because nobody in France is listenning to them. Read their speeches and then go to Paris. Movie theatres make money with American action films not with their boring state funded nombrilistic social drama movies. Mc Donalds restaurants are everywhere. Young people wear NBA t-shirts and American brands on the street. Nobody feels threatenned by the American "culture" except the elites. People still speak French, still enjoy French food and still read French magazines, still wear French brrands etc. There is nothing wrong with some new ways of living coming from a foreign culture. Even the French language is the consequence of a much bigger cultural invasion (Rome) and France as a political entity from a Germanic invasion (Clovis, Charlesmagne). Anyway back to the real topic: The project is simply great. I would feel more confortable if this European heritage is under public organization supervision than under a private company one. Google is a private company. Its goal is about making money. Here we are talking about culture heritage. Knowledge must be free. It should be copied, duplicated, modified, distributed freely. Nobody can have any claim on patents, copyrights or any stuffs like that. Anyway As somebody pointed out. Sooner or later googlebot will browse their database and index it anyway. Maybe they could use it like they did with dmoz.org . And other search engines too... That's the real point. Sooner or later a better (privatly funded) search engine will come out and will get an access to this public database. Olivier