Internet Archive Challenges Google

richards1052 writes "The Internet Archive, whose main claim to fame is the Wayback Machine, designed to archive the internet's web history, has created a new project: the Open Content Alliance. It's purpose is to open the nation's library collections to universal web search. A number of major library systems, including the Boston Public Library and Smithsonian, have refused to sign up with competing ventures by Microsoft and Google because they do not provide for universal access to digitized books. These commercial ventures prohibit books being accessed by competing search engines. So far, 80 libraries and research institutions have signed on with Open Content Alliance. They must pay for the scanning of their books while Google and Microsoft offset that cost for their participating institutions."

Comments

Society lost

[packetmon]

I believe I've commented on something like this before. Might be a good idea to archive the books lest somewhere in the future we re-live something like the Spanish Inquisition where important literature was lost. Its also making this society a bunch of couch potatoes. What ever happened to walking into a quiet library, the smell of stale books, looking around at people. Its slowly being replaced by reading books online and hitting ctrl-w to close annoying popups while you read. Currently I have about 30+ Cisco (CCIE/NP/IP/etc) books and each come with their PDF's. At first I thought, neat I can read them on my laptop... Nowadays I find its easy to just open the book, nothing like butchering my books up with highlighters... This world is coming to one where companies will be fighting to keep us locked in our houses. Call me a troll, just speculation

Re:Society lost

[CRCulver]

I enjoy very much sitting in a university library with piles of books around me to work through. However, as someone who spends most of the year traveling, usually lugging around a bag or two of hardbound specialist literature in addition to an already heavy backpack, the more I can put on my notebook the better. PDFs don't weigh anything.

Re:Society lost

[RsG]

Might be a good idea to archive the books lest somewhere in the future we re-live something like the Spanish Inquisition where important literature was lost.

Oh really, does that seem likely?

I don't expect the Spanish Inquisition...

Re:Society lost

[Actually, I do RTFA]

PDFs don't weigh anything.

Not true, ones have slightly more mass than zeros, so they weight a tad more than zeroing out that section of your drive!

Note, my source is Dilbert. But it was right about smaller font sizes leading to smaller .doc sizes as well.

Re:Society lost

[beadfulthings]

I don't think you're a troll, and until recently I would have agreed with every point in your post. Now I'm not so sure. Anything that preserves the written word from future loss, and makes books and literature available to more people, is a good thing. Freeing this activity from commercial restraints is a good idea; somehow the commercial route would make me think my choices might be somehow limited by what the commercial software "wanted" to show me.

It's the quiet library...dusty books part that has me a bit concerned at the moment. My city recently built a brand-new neighborhood "anchor" library within striking distance of my house. That eliminated the need for a tedious drive or bus ride downtown to the main library, the expensive necessity of finding scarce parking, and the tyranny of downtown "business hours." The branch is convenient, has good parking, and is open for people who have to work during the daytime. It's bright and attractive. Endowed with an outdoor "reading garden" for good weather, it will shortly boast an indoor coffee area. It has banks of computers to be allocated to either youngsters or adults, a pretty good periodicals section, and a pretty good reference section. It also manages to cater to our increasing Hispanic population. The kids' section, which takes up half of the main floor, appears to be excellent. There's a huge section of fairly current DVD films. Tables (and to my surprise) comfortable easy chairs are invitingly scattered throughout.

I guess the problem is that with all the beautiful amenities, there's actually not much room for books. To be fair, they are just starting out, and their holdings will certainly increase. I'm just not sure where they will locate a collection that's much larger. I would divide my reading into "work-related," "feel like I ought to read it," and "just for pleasure." It's not easy to find new or interesting titles in any of those areas. They're trying, but there's just not enough space.

I've resolved that, to an extent, with a nifty little Mac utility called "Library Books." By entering my online access information, plus the library's catalog system (iBistro/Sirsi), I suddenly have complete, convenient access to the entire city and state library system. I can browse, search, and reserve. I could do all of that simply by going to the library's main Website and logging in, but the utility does me little favors like alerting me to the arrival of reserved titles and putting a big, red star up on days when books are due. It's a convenience that makes online browsing just a bit easier.

I've thrown myself into the new anchor library, in tandem with the simplified online access of the Library Books utility. I've become an evangelist, of sorts, for requesting and reserving books. It's amazing the number of people who don't know you can do that. The sheer square footage required to hold a large collection isn't feasible for neighborhood libraries, and I feel as though this sort of system gives one the best of both worlds. No yellow markers, though . . .

Re:Society lost

[hasbeard]

It seems to me that in today's climate, religious conservatives (You would probably consider me one) are also threatened with censorship. Some Christian leaders have pointed out the possibility that "hate speech" laws could be utilized to limit the ability of Christians to free practice their faith and voice their beliefs about homosexuality and other matters. It isn't that difficult to posit a future in which the Bible could be banned as "hate speech" and Christians jailed, denied employment, or are otherwise discriminated against because of their beliefs. Secular, totalitarian states have also banned and burned books. There are Christians enduring persecution in many places in the world even as I type this. And if you want to ask someone about government censorship, you may want to talk to the Chinese people where Christians and others are regularly censored by their non-religious government.

Re:Society lost

[triffid_98]

It's not just the right you need be concerned with, the left is equally likely to purge "inappropriate content", they just make up different reasons for it. It espouses racism (Huckleberry Finn), it's pornographic (The Scarlet Letter), it's dangerous (The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments). Big brother or nanny government, it all boils down to the same thing. 2008 is coming people, can we please can all of these assholes before I end up having to describe this as double plus good?

(read Christian religious right) have "won" and science as it now stands is banned. Books could easily be "misplaced" by these folks, and the library of congress purged of "inappropriate content".

A Better Link

[value_added]

The Libraries Shun Deals to Place Books on Web story in The New York Times covers the subject fairly well.

Scan My Books

[Doc Ruby]

I buy a lot of books. I've got probably 10,000 or so. I wish I could search through them. Some for reference, sometimes because I read something that sounds familiar that I want to find where I first read it. I'd also like to read them on my PC sometimes, or even on my phone like when I'm waiting for a while somewhere. And I'd like to copy/paste short passages from them into messages I send on the Internet.

If this project is really "open", can I have my own libarary scanned? How much does it cost? I own the rights to copy my own books for my own personal use. Does something make these other "official" libraries eligible to use their full rights to their content in a way that I cannot?

Re:Scan My Books

[Doc Ruby]

Yeah, except it's already bad enough that Google has a log of every Web search I make. I don't need them having a log of every book I've read. They'd have a map of my mind. Next they'd require I upload my genome as the "encryption key". Then I'd face an army of imprinted clones, each backed by Google's budget.

Re:Way to go!

[kebes]

The free exchange of ideas (not entertainment for those of you who download your entire music libraries from Kazaa) will promote progress across the board.

It's interesting that you draw such a sharp difference between information and entertainment. I agree that there are differences between content intended to transfer knowledge, and content intended to amuse... but certainly there are strong similarities between the two.

In particular, if you accept that free exchange of ideas will promote intellectual progress, then is it not also reasonable to suggest that free exchange of artistic content will promote cultural progress? This is the central notion that Lawrence Lessig advocates: that overly restricting the distribution, reuse, and remixing of art and entertainment will inherently stifle culture. (Note that Lessig does not advocate wanton infringement nor abolition of copyright: merely a 'sane' balance between the rights of content creators and the rights of content users.)

With respect to this current initiative, it would appear that they intend to scan and index books that are oriented towards information, as well as those oriented towards entertainment. In my opinion, this is a good thing. There is much that people can learn and grow by having easier access to ideas, where "ideas" means both informational sources, as well as artistic sources.

False Dichotomy?

[internic]

There's a story about this in The New York Times this morning (free reg required). It begins:

Several major research libraries have rebuffed offers from Google and Microsoft to scan their books into computer databases, saying they are put off by restrictions these companies want to place on the new digital collections.

The research libraries, including a large consortium in the Boston area, are instead signing on with the Open Content Alliance, a nonprofit effort aimed at making their materials broadly available.

The opposition between the Open Content Alliance and Google may not be as much as it seems at first glance. From the NYT article:

Adam Smith, project management director of Google Book Search, noted that the company's deals with libraries were not exclusive. "We're excited that the O.C.A. has signed more libraries, and we hope they sign many more," Mr. Smith said.

It looks like Google will digitize the collection for free in exchange for exclusive rights to offering searches of the digital data, but the libraries don't give up rights to have someone else digitize the stuff again and do with it as they see fit. So they can go with Google for now if they want and the O.C.A. later as they have the resources. This seems pretty reasonable to me. I don't know what the deal Microsoft is offering looks like, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's much more restrictive.

Nobody...

[jefu]

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.....

(Can't believe I'm the first one to respond with that. Of course by now I'm probably not. )