Future of Books Bleak Without Scanning Projects, Publishers Hear
Wading into hostile territory, a university participant in Google’s book-scanning project pleaded with academic publishers to embrace digitization efforts by libraries and companies as both a boon to business and insurance against unforeseen events like natural disasters. In remarks prepared for a keynote speech, U. of Mich. Pres. Mary Coleman told the Assn. of American Publishers at its D.C. conference Mon. libraries face the same pressure as the state’s auto industry. She quoted a Ford official’s statement defending its cutbacks: “Change or die.” But the audience sharply questioned Coleman about Google’s motives and why they weren’t consulted for the project.
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Digitization was under way before Google approached the U. of Mich., Coleman said. The library was scanning 5,000- 8,000 volumes yearly, targeting works that were “brittle or damaged, and at risk of being lost forever,” Coleman said. About a quarter of its collection is brittle, and 3.5 million books are printed on acidic paper “that will eventually break down.”
Wars, natural disasters and civil conflict have also endangered and destroyed library collections, Coleman said. Tulane U.’s main library lost 90% of its govt. documents collection comprising 750,000 materials when Hurricane Katrina hit, and less than 20% of Cambodia’s National Library survived the Khmer Rouge’s cultural purge in the 1970s, she said. “All but a handful” of books were destroyed in the U. of the Philippines’ main library by Japanese troops in World War II, leading the U. of Mich. to start a massive donation project with other institutions over 7 years. “Societies progress when knowledge is shared, and this extraordinary digital library is a gift to schools and colleges in developing countries,” she said.
Coleman reminded publishers the university was instrumental in creating the technology used in the online journal archive JSTOR. That project of Mich., Princeton U. and the Mellon Foundation started with 10 journals and 100 libraries and now covers 600 journals and 2,650 libraries in 98 countries, she said. The Mellon-funded Making of America digitization project, which has scanned hundreds of 1850-1876 primary sources, gets up to 1 million hits a month on the project’s searchable website. The university will continue scanning after its Google contract ends, Coleman said.
Coleman emphasized that full works will remain hidden from public view. Google is providing the library a digital copy of each work, but those still under copyright will “remain dark until falling into the public domain,” she said: “Believe me, students will not be reading digital copies of Harry Potter in their dorm rooms.” U. of Mich. students are already using digitized library resources more than the library itself, she added.
But she defended making “snippets” visible through searches as a measure to spur sales, especially for small publishers like university presses. The major retailers of the past century -- from Sears Roebuck to Amazon.com -- are also giant catalogs, and Google Book Search will be a “massive, free directory to your publications,” Coleman said: “The bottom line… is that our publishing houses and authors can only benefit financially and reputationally from the widest possible awareness of books and their availability.”
Audience Boos Google Motives, Compares to Napster
Coleman enjoyed one friendly comment before the onslaught of criticism from the audience. A representative of a legal services firm said he bought 12 books he had found through Google Book Search since the service went live. Coleman said the Making of America archive also offered a printing service: “Believe it or not we are getting orders for about 5 books a day,” and “that’s only the tip of the iceberg.”
Questions took a harsh turn as several people accused Google of making money off the scanning service and leaving them out of the business model that Coleman praised as the future. “You should worry more about people being able to buy a scanner” and upload entire books, she said. Asked why Google -- if it was acting for the public good -- wasn’t sharing its scanning technology with others, Coleman said it has a right to keep its proprietary technology to itself and it was abiding by the copyright laws. The crowd buzzed when Coleman, responding to a challenge that it would be stealing to copy an entire book in a library, said it was in fact lawful and added “I have my attorney here,” sparking laughter.
The dreaded comparison to the original Napster came up near the end. Coleman responded: “This is not like Napster at all,” explaining searches results would will present only snippets, not full works. Asked what a “snippet” was, she said 2 or so sentences: “You can’t read a book in snippets.” Google’s motives as a for-profit company repeatedly came up. “I understand Google’s perspective,” Coleman said: “It’s not practical to do a licensing strategy for the library part,” given the sheer volume of publishers to deal with.
Told that Google would gain ad revenue through the project, regardless of the university’s intention, Coleman said: “I view it a bit differently.” She compared the scanning project to a bookstore with a coffee shop: People stay longer and buy more books when they can buy and drink coffee on the premises. But does that mean bookstores should share the coffee shop’s profits, she asked, which left the combative crowd silent.