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.

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.

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. )