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Google Opens Digital Library to EU
Kailash Nadh writes "Google Inc. is asking European book publishers to submit non-English material to its Internet-leading search engine a move that may ease worries about the company's digital library relying too heavily on Anglo-American content. The Google Print undertaking represents a major piece of Google's effort to convert printed material into a digital format so it can be called up from any computing device with an Internet connection. By indexing the material, Google hopes to attract more visitors to its Web site and spawn more searches that generate advertising revenue."
Google Inc. is asking European book publishers to submit non-English material to its Internet-leading search engine a move that may ease worries about the company's digital library relying too heavily on Anglo-American content.
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If it weren't for the non-English books at my college library (Rutgers), I don't know what I would have done. All the English books were stolen, vandalized, or had pages torn out (partially stolen?).
Similarly, maybe the foreign language servers will has less traffic and it will be easier to get the info I need.
I'm glad I can read more than one language.
"By indexing the material, Google hopes to attract more visitors to its Web site and spawn more searches that generate advertising revenue.
I thought they were doing it because they wanted to show off.
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I've heard that some people were complaining about Google indexing copyrighted books. Now this announcement will have many publishers scrambling to give Google their books.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
By indexing the material, Google hopes to attract more visitors to its Web site and spawn more searches that generate advertising revenue
Is that a fact or an assumption?
who speaks only one language welcome these new non-english material to google in hopes that it makes me feel more dumber-est ever.
It might help you learn a few more languages. My experience is that the best way to get relatively fluent in a language is to get a copy of Harry Potter in said language and sit down with a cup of hot choccy and a dictionary.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
Where is Zonk and what have you done with him??!?!!11cranberries!
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
It seems like the attitude toward Google is changing a lot. A few years ago I don't think we would have thought Google's motivation would be necessarily to gain massive revenue, but instead to create just a huge database for the public good...
This is yet another move by google to it's new product: Google Purge
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
If programmatic translation continues to improve then this could really be something huge. Imagine a huge database with creative works from every culture in whatever language, available to anyone who desires in their native tongue.
I hope that we don't end up getting rid of the hard copies for archival purposes...t eworsethandeath
I am not a ginat Rall fan, but he has a good point in this article...
Cultural Suicide via Digitalization
Ted Rall
NEW YORK--Compact discs won't skip. They'll play even if you scratch them. Unless you break them or set them on fire, they'll last forever. That's the sales pitch the recording industry used to convince America to switch from vinyl records to CDs. But, as anyone who owns a hairy dog or cat knows, CDs do skip. And as anyone who uses them to store computer files knows, digital data stored on them eventually vanishes in a mysterious phenomenon called "data rot." "With proper care this Compact Disc will last a lifetime," promised the packaging on the first digital recordings. Now experts wonder whether they'll make it 20 years. Without discussion or debate humanity has committed itself to the wholesale digitalization of its collective cultural and historical information base. Music, movies, manuscripts, everything from letters between presidents to merchants' financial transactions are currently created and stored in strictly digital form--a development that fulfills George Orwell's prophecy that history would become mutable, now with a few keystrokes. Even more terrifying than the likelihood that the digitalization of history will be abused in the service of tyranny is the certainty that we are setting the stage for the greatest loss of knowledge since the destruction of the Royal Library at Alexandria.
Continued here.... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20050824/cm_ucru/afa
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
We need more information available to us. As a student, I know how this works. I always get a great preview on a search engine, exactly what I need for my term paper, then as soon as I click on it, I need to pay $14! Outrageous! What happened to freedom of information? Google stands for freedom of information, and I stand by that.
Not only "land of the free" but "land of the lawyers" who love a good old 1st amendment smackdown. Shihar 153932
Google Search
Google Maps
Gmail
Google Library
Froogle
Google Offline
Google Talk
etc.
It's just a matter of time before Google TV will appear. Google's goal seem to be to wrap itself all around you.
what's the link for google books? care to share pls thnks
On a more serious note, how does one insure the intergrity of digital collections. Things can disappear or be replaced with more politically acceptable alternatives.
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Oh, I can't help it I have to say something. :) Hahahaha!
If the EU is full of homosexuals then every white man in the USA must carry the same gene!
Google hopes to attract more visitors to its Web site and spawn more searches that generate advertising revenue. I, for one, am shocked. I never expected that Google would try to make money.
I'm also shocked that they are trying to attract more users to their website - thanks for this news. Until I read this, I was convinced that they were trying to keep themselves a secret.
Thank you for reminding us that as far as America is concerned, Europe ends at the German and the Italian borders (and doesn't include a bunch of countries even west of there). It's now officially okay to forget about Poland, Belgium, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Denmark, Czech Republic, Greece, Ireland, Hungary, Portugal, Estonia, Cyprus, Slovenia, Malta, Latvia, Sweden, Lithuana, Finland, and Austria.
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There are only some texts, like poetry, that are better readed in its original languaje.
So I think thats its a great idea having a Europen Google Library, but I don't think that it's very useful for english-speaking countries but all the other non-english.
My city: Barcelona.
i would love to get as much information as i want. this will definitely help me.
check out www.greenstone.org for a gpl application that rapidly allows you to create a digital library.
I heard Pimsler language courses are pretty good to get you up to speed with the basics, and a "look and feel" of the language.
Learning a new language is a good thing. For example, talking of experience: English is not my native language, but it was really good thing to learn it, since now I can find perhaps a hundred times more books in English than in my native language... Broadens the horizons, so to speak.
I do not moderate.
I thought the problems that content overseers had with Google Books is that it's preying on content without sustainably compensating producers of it. Not "relying" on content. I guess it's OK for corporations to increase the value of content by sharing it, via the network effect, but not when humans do the same (often more effectively).
--
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From the article:
"By reaching out to European publishers, Google hopes to substantially increase the volume of non-English books in its database, said Jim Gerber, director of content partnership for Google's print program."
What it should say is:
"By reaching out to European publishers, Google hopes to substantially increase the pressure on big American publishing houses who have balked at their attempts to catalog the mass-marketed books that they make money on and which Google knows will draw shitloads of traffic to their site, pushing up their advertising revenue said Jim Gerber, director of content partnership for Google's print program."
Oh, that's not the issue, you silly man, I can hear some of you say. But as a small, independent publisher who joined Google Print several months ago and who's books are still in "pending" status, I have to wonder why they would be soliciting European publishers when they can't seem to get my few books into their Almighty Index.
Oops. Forgot. I'm a nobody. A small businees. Nodody really gives a rat's ass about my books because they don't come with instant recognition, branding, and millions of marketing dollars already spent.
My few books may be quality, but they probably won't bring in the buh-zillion hits and generate the goog-illion dollars that the Google shareholders need to justify their $285 stocks.
It's okay guys. I understand that you don't really want to be evil, it's just that as a publicly traded company you now have a fiduciary responsibility to be evil.
Read any good sonnets lately?
I mean, I spend a fair amount of time in Germany (for example) and am routinely disgusted by the price-fixed bookstores. The prices of books in dead-tree format are ridiculous...so now what are those publishers going to do as material starts going online? Even though we're slightly talking apples and oranges, it seems like this would hurt them in the long run.
Sure, they can voraciously defend their turf by aggressively protecting copywritten works, but what's the German timeframe on text going to public domain? Is it better than the US's life+50 gajillion years?
-Styopa
In general copyright is based upon an international convention (Berne Convention. I don't know exactly what Germany uses, I would guess life+50 years.