Editorial: Access by Google

If nicholson Baker was upset over the digitization of newspapers, he must be quaking at Google's latest announcement of a partnership with five of the great research institutions to scan their libraries' print collections as digital files and make them searchable via the web. True, many libraries have already embarked on this path themselves, among them Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, and the University of Michigan (UM) (the latter two are among the Google Five), and the Library of Congress, which also recently announced a multinational effort to digitize some one million books. Companies like ebrary and netLibrary have been delivering small collections of ebooks, with varying degrees of cross-content searchability, since the late 1990s.

Nevertheless, the sheer scale of the Google project is staggering: 15 million books and other documents over the next decade, nearly all from Stanford and UM, as well as a limited number of volumes or documents from Harvard, Oxford, and the New York Public Library. In exchange for allowing Google to load their collections, the libraries will receive copies of their own digital database for their users. And the search engine will direct users to library holdings, too.

While we're all scrambling to figure out how to become the Amazon.com library and use technology like wireless and handheld devices to deliver information, Google, with proceeds from its billion-dollar IPO, has moved us squarely into the 21st-century world—with our books.

Of course, there are hundreds of questions to be asked and answered. Librarians, among others, have begun the dialog. Because of the concerns raised by Baker and others regarding the destruction of newspapers in the process of microfilming them, the participating libraries will have greater control over the scanning of books. As for the long-term viability of digital files, we've been told often enough that there is no technology as durable—not to mention portable—as books, so the existence of print may not be threatened by the program as some might fear.

There are questions of copyright, too: even books still under copyright, however, will be scanned by Google, although only those in the public domain will be available in full text; for works still protected, there will be only brief excerpts.

Is this initiative a boon or bane for publishers? One of my colleagues suggests the venture may be Google's way of putting pressure on publishers to digitize and make available all of their books online (many publishers are already on board to differing degrees with either new or backlist titles). Online excerpts like Amazon's Search Inside the Book feature have purportedly spurred sales, but it is not clear how putting backlist titles online, titles that account for a huge percentage of revenue, will affect trade book purchases. The impact is even more critical for the already financially strapped academic publishers, who rely on research institutions and scholars for monograph revenues. Another colleague suggests it may be time to buy stock in used book seller Alibris.

Librarians can expect to hear more and louder chants of, "Why do we need libraries, anyhow, if everything is online?" The profession has grappled with that one for a long time. LJ's Librarian of the Year, Susan Nutter (on our cover), who has positioned her library at the center of the North Carolina State University campus, says, "I truly believe that you have to listen to [students and faculty] and do what they want….it's their library."

Google's new effort only enhances the access librarians can give users, whether they are students or faculty, children or adults.

fialkoff@reedbusiness.com