Journal Entry Question #4
Reading in Cyberspace?!?
Among the many tools that Google has provided wed-users with such as Google map, Google News, and much more, Google has once again provided a new tool, though very controversial, for us users: Google Book Search. Like the description written below, the program is used to: Search the full text of books and discover new ones. How does Google have access to these books? Well, it has scanned the reading material and now possesses a database full of them. However, this library-based digitization would have a negative impact on Google's relationships with publishers. Google, has agreed to "respect authors and publishers" and would only show a limited amount of contents from these books that are copyright and printed. The content that is allowed to be shown is all decided by the publishers. This "limited amount" usually means only a few sentences, or in some cases, maybe a few pages. In contrast, those books without copyright laws would be scanned and distributed as a whole with the use of Google Book Search. No matter how much content the publishers agree to have posted online with the use of this program, publishers want to make money from the sale of these books. If a free version can be downloaded online, consumers would not find the need to buy books from stores anymore, causing disturbance in the marketing world. Stores like Chapters and Indigo can lose business.
Currently, Google's competitors such as Yahoo and Microsoft have not done anything drastic to "take out their competition". However, these companies have competed with each other and it shows on their sites. many features that are on Google, such as Google News, or Google Image, are similarly on Microsoft and Yahoo's web pages. As they try to create similar tools for web-users, the competition is more intensified and this new tools, Google Book Search, would definitely spark up conversation at Yahoo or Microsoft headquarters. I believe that this technology wouldn't have such a huge impact on the access to information. Because Google Book Search would only usually provide a few lines of text for users, not much context could be drawn out of the limited amount of information provided by this program.
I believe that librarians should not be threatened by this program because firstly, why would someone want to read 5 lines of a book when they could read the whole thing?? Maybe the answer is that the internet provides this information for free... but so does the library. In addition, I doubt anyone would want to read a bunch of books on a monitor when they could carry a book around and read it on-the-go. Therefore, librarians shouldn't be threatened with this new tool created by Google. In my opinion, I think that this program is not as good as I first thought it was when I read the article. I believe that this program could only be used to one's advantage when a book, with no copyright laws, needs to be found. Otherwise, little snippets of the plots displayed in the book cannot be fully enjoyed by a reader.
Among the many tools that Google has provided wed-users with such as Google map, Google News, and much more, Google has once again provided a new tool, though very controversial, for us users: Google Book Search. Like the description written below, the program is used to: Search the full text of books and discover new ones. How does Google have access to these books? Well, it has scanned the reading material and now possesses a database full of them. However, this library-based digitization would have a negative impact on Google's relationships with publishers. Google, has agreed to "respect authors and publishers" and would only show a limited amount of contents from these books that are copyright and printed. The content that is allowed to be shown is all decided by the publishers. This "limited amount" usually means only a few sentences, or in some cases, maybe a few pages. In contrast, those books without copyright laws would be scanned and distributed as a whole with the use of Google Book Search. No matter how much content the publishers agree to have posted online with the use of this program, publishers want to make money from the sale of these books. If a free version can be downloaded online, consumers would not find the need to buy books from stores anymore, causing disturbance in the marketing world. Stores like Chapters and Indigo can lose business.
Currently, Google's competitors such as Yahoo and Microsoft have not done anything drastic to "take out their competition". However, these companies have competed with each other and it shows on their sites. many features that are on Google, such as Google News, or Google Image, are similarly on Microsoft and Yahoo's web pages. As they try to create similar tools for web-users, the competition is more intensified and this new tools, Google Book Search, would definitely spark up conversation at Yahoo or Microsoft headquarters. I believe that this technology wouldn't have such a huge impact on the access to information. Because Google Book Search would only usually provide a few lines of text for users, not much context could be drawn out of the limited amount of information provided by this program.
I believe that librarians should not be threatened by this program because firstly, why would someone want to read 5 lines of a book when they could read the whole thing?? Maybe the answer is that the internet provides this information for free... but so does the library. In addition, I doubt anyone would want to read a bunch of books on a monitor when they could carry a book around and read it on-the-go. Therefore, librarians shouldn't be threatened with this new tool created by Google. In my opinion, I think that this program is not as good as I first thought it was when I read the article. I believe that this program could only be used to one's advantage when a book, with no copyright laws, needs to be found. Otherwise, little snippets of the plots displayed in the book cannot be fully enjoyed by a reader.
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on Sunday, June 10, 2007 at 2:35 PM.
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