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Librarians Express Concern Over Google Books
angry tapir writes "Many libraries routinely delete borrower information, and organizations such as the American Library Association have fought hard to preserve the privacy of their patrons in the face of laws such as the US Patriot Act. But now, as more and more titles become available in Google Book Search, it's not clear whether digital readers will enjoy the same privacy protections they have at the library."
I, for one, am getting really fed up with people trying to get in the way of Google, and others making more information available, for free. And on the thinest pretexts. There is a huge difference between protecting the public right to privacy, as has recently ocured here in Switzerland and this endless carping by libraries and copyright holders about orphaned books etc. In the UK a condition of copyright in a requirement to offer a small number of copies to the so called Copyright libraries eg the British Museum.
If we are serious about scholarship in the internet age we must do something similar, allow google and others to scan and index books provide short extracts free for fair use while selling complete electronic copies through retailers. The same for learned journals.
Every time I hear nonsense from libraries, journal providers and content providers (think Murdoch) I smell hipocracy and corruption thick in the air.
Seriously, don't everyone? I did say 'if they really wanted to' - and if they did, obviously it would be a routine job to pull all posts made on every social networking profile, contents of all mailboxes, and if Echelon is in play, automatic copying of all packets sent to your IP as updated when you log on. I would actually be really disappointed in the US intelligence service if this was NOT routinely done. TOR most likely have a large number of government controlled nodes as well, or they're idiots - the cost to run at least 1/3 of the total nodes is miniscule in intelligence terms, but provides full coverage of the number one "anonymity" tool.
Not only governments, but private groups perform internet surveillance as well. Some time ago I was writing in a national newspaper in my home country, Verdens Gang (VG) in Norway. This was on a controversial topic, and knowing the social-political climate in everyday Norway, I made absolutely sure (and not highlighting it either) not to post any personally identifiable information. One day my brother picked up the phone when I was next to him, and someone demanded to speak to (the obscure nickname of another person on the board who debated the same topic). This would have required at least one person in the newspaper itself to look up my IP, and at least one person in my ISP to look up my address. Obviously ideological/nongovernmental, as only private groups are lame enough to harass at home.
I'd be interested in any advice on offshore encryption.
April 28, 2005, American Librarians Association President Carol Brey - Casiano responds to Oversight Hearing on Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act
"Using the public library is one of the benefits of living in our free and democratic society. The First Amendment promises everyone in the United States a fundamental right of free speech and free inquiry. Every person is entitled to read anything about a topic or opinion without the government looking over his or her shoulder. When there is evidence of a crime or evidence that a crime is about to be committed, law enforcement officers can obtain search warrants and subpoenas permitting them to access the records of the suspected criminal.
"Library patrons use our nation's libraries with an expectation of privacy because in 48 states, laws declare that a person's library records are private and confidential; the remaining two states, Kentucky and Hawaii, have attorneys' general opinions recognizing the confidentiality of library records. All of these laws existed before the USA PATRIOT Act was enacted.
"The USA PATRIOT Act preempts the privacy protections provided by state library confidentiality laws, which balance protection of library patron records with the needs of law enforcement. Because the USA PATRIOT Act does not require the FBI to name an individual or to give specific reasons to believe he is engaged in terrorism, Section 215 has the potential to open patrons' reading and research records to a 'fishing expedition.'
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
advocated by one of the groups of workers who stand to lose the most from having a vast body of literature made easily available to individuals
Google Books doesn't return the whole book for you to read, so I don't see how Google Books could do anything but HELP libraries. You remember a passage, look it up on Google Books, you then have the ISBN making it easier to get the book from the library where, unlike Google or Amazon, you can read the whole book for free.
What am I missing here?
Free Martian Whores!
On the other hand, Google Books is also a tool for librarians when the books are not available locally, as many libraries supply internet access to members of their community that can not afford to have it at home. That, and generally librarians are always concerned about privacy issues, whether they directly impact the libraries or not.
I recently looked into possibly going into the field myself, and found that my interest perhaps wasn't as unusual as I first thought, as there is a massive overlap with computer science and information systems, including a concentration in Informatics for people going for their Masters in Library Science.
Unfortunately, most of the work for a modern librarian is focused on acquiring and maintaining funding to maintain the library, and far too many communities face losing these resources.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
Of course they do. They desperately try to find a reason why libraries should continue to exist.
I'll tell you why libraries should continue to exist: librarians.
Too many people think "Google it" is the answer to everything, but for serious research (i.e., anything where reliability is important) it's not always that simple. It cannot be overemphasized that the Internet is the equivalent of a massive shoebox full of information. There's no real indexing or quality control. Sites like Google and (God help us all...) Bing are doing a better job at the indexing, but just about any yahoo that can use an HTML editor (which means, just about any yahoo) can put up a web page about any topic they like, and become an "expert" if they can manage to get the page hits/links to back it up.
Librarians are the people who fill the gap, explaining to people how to evaluate and cull through the information they get online. (Of course, this is the ideal. I acknowledge that there are librarians who don't have this skill when it comes to online resources, and I don't have any sympathy for them, frankly.)
As background, I'm not a librarian, but I do have a Masters in library science, and I have done professional searching for ~ 13 years.