Release of Google Contract with UC Sparks Criticism

-- Library Journal, 9/5/2006

The University of California (UC) has released the terms of its contract with Google to scan books in UC's library collections. The six-year deal involves at least 2.5 million books, with UC providing at least 600 books per day for the first two months and more once the project is us up to full capacity. In return for its participation, UC will receive one copy of the scans. The university, however, can't share, license, or sell its scans to any third party and can redistribute no more than ten percent of scanned material to other libraries or schools, even for educational purposes—which constrains interlibrary loan. The release of the terms fulfills a request from the Chronicle of Higher Education and responds to a "general interest," UC said.

Though the contract does not seem much different from the University of Michigan/Google contract made public last year, it still sparked criticism. Internet Archive and Open Content Alliance (OCA) founder Brewster Kahle noted that the contract shows there has been no evolution in Google's practices. Kahle stressed that the Google project is not a public resource but "the private library" of a single corporation, while, on the other hand, the OCA is committed to openness. "It's a little hard for me to understand," he said of UC's partnership with Google. "Because I do believe they understand the difference." He added, "I hope it doesn't discourage those interested in the open sphere." Kahle said. "If we have a retreat where libraries don't go with their original principle of public service and just try to sell off their collections—to the lowest bidder, for a copy of a scan they can't do much with—it is another step toward the privatization of the library system. I'm going to put every effort I can to keep a public library system alive." He said the OCA was progressing and urged the library community to consider the benefits of collaboration, which could confront the book industry's concerns about copyright. If the average book is 300 pages, for $300 million you could have a high-quality ten million-book library, he said. "The library market is a $12 billion industry. For $300 million a universal library is within our grasp, technically and financially. The question is, what role will the library system play in making this happen and at the end of the day will we have a private library system or a public library system?"