"In 2002, (...) according to Google’s official history, it began a “secret ‘books’ project.” Today, that project is known as Google Book Search and, aided by a recent class-action settlement, it promises to transform the way information is collected: who controls the most books; who gets access to those books; how access will be sold and attained. There will be blood, in other words.
Like the oil barons in the late 19th century, Google is thirsty for a vital raw material — digital content. As Daniel J. Clancy, the engineering director for Google Book Search, put it, “our core business is about search and discovery, and search and discovery improves with more content.”
O grande encanto e desafio da profissão de bibliotecário está precisamente, pelo menos para mim, no processo de busca e descoberta dos conteúdos.
He can even sound like a prospector when he says Google began its effort to scan millions of books “because there is a ridiculous amount of information out there,” he said, later adding, “and we didn’t see anyone else doing it.”
But there is a crucial difference. (…) when Google copies a book the original remains.
Instead, the “property” being taken is represented by copyrights and other kinds of ownership. There will be lawsuits.
In the latest issue of The New York Review of Books, Robert Darnton, the head of the Harvard library system, writes about the Google class-action agreement with the passion of a Progressive Era muckraker.
“Google will enjoy what can only be called a monopoly — a monopoly of a new kind, not of railroads or steel but of access to information,” Mr. Darnton writes. “Google has no serious competitors.”
He adds, “Google alone has the wealth to digitize on a massive scale. And having settled with the authors and publishers, it can exploit its financial power from within a protective legal barrier; for the class action suit covers the entire class of authors and publishers.”
Google is certainly solidifying a dominant position in the world of books by digitizing the great collections of the world. It relies on a basic mathematical principle: no matter how many volumes Harvard or
The class-action settlement (which a judge must still approve), Mr. Darnton writes, “will give Google control over the digitizing of virtually all books covered by copyright in the
As long as Google has a set of millions of books that it uniquely can offer to the public, he argues, it has a monopoly it can exploit. You want that 1953 treatise on German state planning? You’ll have to pay. Or, more seriously, your library wants unfettered access to these millions of books? You’ll have to subscribe.
While Harvard has allowed Google to digitize its public domain holdings, it has thus far not agreed to the settlement. “Contrary to many reports, Harvard has not rejected the settlement,” Mr. Darnton wrote in an e-mail message, in which he said his essay was “not meant as an attack on Google.” “It is studying the situation as the proposed accord makes its way through the court.”
To professors who track the fast-changing nature of content on the Internet, not to mention Google officials, the idea of Google as a robber baron is fanciful. Google has no interest in controlling content, Mr. Clancy said, and in the few cases where it does create its own content — maps or financial information, for instance — it tries to make it available free.
Eben Moglen, a law professor at
To those who write about the significance of Google Book Search — and a bit of a cottage industry has formed online in a few months — it is not Google’s role as the owner of content that preoccupies them. Rather it is the digitization itself: the centralization — and homogenization — of information.
To Thomas Augst, an English professor at New York University who has studied the history of libraries, including those in the past that were run as businesses, what is significant is that the digitization of books is ending the distinction between circulating libraries, meant for public readers, and research libraries, meant for scholars. It’s not as if anyone from the public can walk into the Harvard library.
“A positive way to look at what Google is doing,” he said, “is that it is advancing the circulating of books and leveling these distinctions.”
In a final twist, however, the digital-rights class-action agreement has the potential to make physical libraries newly relevant. Each public library will have one computer with complete access to Google Book Search, a service that normally would come as part of a paid subscription.
One of Mr. Darnton’s concerns is that a single computer may not be enough to meet public demand. But Mr. Augst already can see a great benefit.
Google is “creating a new reason to go to public libraries, which I think is fantastic,” he said. “Public libraries have a communal function, a symbolic function that can only happen if people are there”.
Os sublinhados a negrito são meus.
Podem ler o artigo na íntegra aqui»
Na Internet, e em Português, podemos ler "Acerca da Pesquisa de livros do Google":
- "Pesquisar
A Pesquisa de livros funciona tal como a pesquisa na Web. Experimente procurar na Pesquisa de livros do Google ou em Google.com. Quando encontramos um livro cujo conteúdo corresponde aos termos da pesquisa, apresentamos um link para o mesmo nos resultados da pesquisa. - Consultar livros on-line
Se o livro não estiver protegido por direitos de autor ou se a editora nos tiver dado autorização para o efeito, poderá ver uma pré-visualização do livro e, nalguns casos, o texto integral. Se for de domínio público, poderá transferir livremente uma cópia em formato PDF. - Mais informações – rápidas
Criámos páginas de referência para cada livro, a fim de que possa encontrar rapidamente todos os tipos de informação relevantes: críticas de livros, referências da Web, mapas e muito mais. - Compre o livro... ou requisite-o da biblioteca
Se encontrar um livro que lhe agrade, clique nos links "Comprar este livro" e "Requisitar este livro" para ver onde pode comprá-lo ou requisitá-lo. - Qual a origem dos livros?
Actualmente, ligamos os leitores aos livros de duas formas: o Programa para parceiros e o Projecto biblioteca." -
"O objectivo do Projecto biblioteca é fazer com que as pessoas encontrem mais facilmente livros relevantes – especificamente, livros que não encontrariam de qualquer outra forma, tais como os que se encontram esgotados – respeitando escrupulosamente os direitos de autor de editoras e autores. O nosso objectivo fundamental consiste em trabalhar com editoras e bibliotecas para criar um catálogo de fichas virtual, abrangente e pesquisável de todos os livros existentes em todos os idiomas, que ajude os utilizadores a descobrir novos livros e as editoras a encontrar novos leitores".
A Google explica também como chegou a um acordo inovador com autores e editoras aqui.
Através da Pesquisa de livros do Google, pode agora pesquisar o texto integral de cerca de 7 milhões de livros.
Experimentem então o Google Book Search/Pesquisa de livros do Google aqui»
Deixo-vos os links para algumas obras disponíveis em texto integral:
A cidade e as serras, por Eça de Queirós
Moby-Dick, Or, the Whale, por Herman Melville (nada melhor do que ler este "testamento" no écran para marcar uma consulta para o oftalmologista!Se bem que tem a opção de aumentar bastante o texto.)
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