Google Books raises issues
By Paul Biba
The Boston Globe is reporting about a recent panel on the Google Book settlement at the Boston Public Library. Thanks to ShelfAwareness for the link:
… “Google is creating a mega bookstore the likes of which we have never seen,’’ said the panel organizer Maura Marx, executive director of Open Knowledge Commons, a Boston nonprofit organization. “People are very uncomfortable with the idea that one corporation has so much power over such a large collection of knowledge.’’ …
Indeed, the settlement is only part of Google’s plans to expand its digital book collection. The morning after the event at Boston Public Library, Clancy and Jon Orwant, who directs the Google Books operation in Cambridge, described an ongoing project that dwarfs the scope of the controversial settlement.
Google’s ultimate vision, Clancy [Google Books engineering director] said, is an “uber book platform’’ in which millions of digital books are available in a marketplace open to publishers, consumers, and online bookstores.
Clancy said that Google does not release detailed information about the number or location of its scanning centers, but that there were “around six’’ scanning centers around the world scanning “thousands of books a day.’’ At the same time, Google is building partnerships with publishers that allow Google Books to host the publishers’ content. In the Google model, digital books will be independent of any particular electronic reading device, such as Amazon’s Kindle.
“The way we see it, you should be able to buy a book for your Sony Reader, and then read it on a Barnes & Noble reader,’’ he said. “Consumers don’t want their books locked up in proprietary devices and walled gardens.’’ …
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