Institutional Subscriptions to Google Bookswith Advertising? Google Won't Rule It Out
Samuelson says discussion should include not just library customers but academic users of potential database
Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 10/12/2009
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- Google's Clancy says no current plan for ads
- Ads would make database cheaper
- Samuelson warns about integrity of research experience
Would the massive Google Books database, to which many academic libraries presumably would buy institutional subscriptions, contain advertising, unlike with other databases libraries buy? Google says that’s not the plan but won’t rule it out, which sets up a potential tension between institutions concerned about their budgets, and library users, especially academics, who object to such commercialization.
The issue came up October 9 at the D is for Digitize conference at New York Law School, held while a revised version of the Google Book Search settlement is being negotiated. University of California, Berkeley, law professor Pamela Samuelson, speaking at the luncheon keynote, declared, “I just found out that institutional subscriptions are going to come with ads. If they do that, that totally changes the research experience.”
Customers or broader constituency?
Google’s point man, Dan Clancy, popped up from the audience to offer a clarification: “Right now that is not the plan.” He said “there would be a dialogue with the universities,” who could decide whether, if the ads could make the database “extremely cheap,” to choose that version. "[That] is something that we’d talk about with customers,” Clancy said.
Samuelson, a critic of the settlement, countered, “I want to make sure that part of the conversation is not just with libraries but with academics who will be using this. Our sense of what the research experience is supposed to be about is affected. If I go to a public library or a research library and pull a book off the shelf, I don’t get bombarded with ads.”
Such a discussion, she said, “should be widely part of a public conversation,” not merely, as Google apparently plans, only with subscribers.
Open Book Alliance warning
The Open Book Alliance, a critic of the settlement, offered a comment:
As far as we know, this is the first time this possible revenue stream has been talked about so openly, despite the months of discussions on the matter. All the more reason to have a serious and open debate about the ramifications and details of a revised settlement proposal. Who knows what else Google might be planning to do should it get a new settlement approved?
