One for All? As Google Deal Is Evaluated, Critics Question Single Library Terminal
Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal, 11/11/2008 1:05:00 PM
| Go back to the Academic Newswire for more stories |
- Critics question library access
- Brantley suggests more free terminals
- LA Times takes up libraries cause
While the Google Book Search settlement has prompted much debate, commentators have only begun to question how it might affect library service. One of the big questions: the deal’s allowance for free access at a designated terminal within public libraries. On one hand, getting every library a free access terminal for patrons to use the full Google Book Search database is a win for libraries—certainly neither Google nor publishers were obligated to consider libraries needs in their deal. On the other hand, critics note, mandating a “single terminal” is a counterintuitive restriction in the digital age, and unfairly lumps all libraries, large and small, well-funded or not, into a single, geographic point of access.
“I strongly object to at least one aspect of the proposed Google Book Search settlement, which lets libraries offer just one terminal per library building for access to various books,” blogged Teleread’s David Rothman. “How backwards—not just the one terminal limit, but also the whole notion of linking access to your presence inside a library!”
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times also took up the cause for libraries in an editorial this week, calling the Google deal a breakhrough, but criticizing the pact as putting the book on "a 'pay to read' approach that's the antithesis of the free public library model." The editorial acknowledged the benefits of the deal to publishers and Google, but questioned its benefit to the public. "The initiative will give publishers important new insights into how people want to use their works online and how digital technology is transforming the book market," the editorial noted. "It's unfortunate that Google and the publishers didn't take advantage of the emerging standards in the electronic book field to enable libraries to acquire and circulate digital versions of out-of-print titles."
Tiered service
In a blog post, Digital Library Federation (DLF) executive director Peter Brantley called the single terminal restriction “irksome” and hinted that this one-size-fits-all provision was inadequate in the face of a lingering digital divide. “I do not know where program management at Google wakes up every morning; I do not know what pretty suburbs publishing executives wake up in every morning,” Brantley blogged. “But in Richmond, CA, [Brantley’s home city] and in many cities around the country, it is heinous to suppose that one public terminal given free reign to the corpus of the world’s literature is an adequate set aside against the promise of the opportunity that Google, publishers, and authors have made possible.”
Brantley argued that many of his fellow residents in Richmond have no Internet access at home and limited access in public schools—but are subject to the same restriction as those in well-off suburbs like Greenwich, CT. He urged the settlement be re-thought as to how it could offer fair, free public access in libraries located in vastly differing economic strata. His proposal: to offer public terminals on a tiered basis. “If a certain percentage of a public library’s served population falls beneath the poverty level, or a similar metric, the number of public access terminals is commensurately increased.”
It is precisely these kinds of suggestions that will now be lodged and considered as the deal moves toward approval. Of course, as public libraries are not parties to the suits, or members of the classes involved in the suit, it will be largely incumbent upon others to fight for such changes—and Brantley urged those others to revisit the issue. “This is not an economic matter, it is a social foundation,” he wrote. “A library is a refuge; you can provide solace in that refuge, and a promise for a different and better kind of future. It is morally incumbent upon you to do so.”
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