Darnton Essay Sparks Google Discussion, but Misunderstandings Persist - 2/3/2009 1:25:00 PM - Library Journal

Darnton Essay Sparks Google Discussion, but Misunderstandings Persist - 2/3/2009 1:25:00 PM - Library Journal 

Darnton Essay Sparks Google Discussion, but Misunderstandings Persist

Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal, 2/3/2009 1:25:00 PM

Since the day Google first fired up it scanners, the potential merits and pitfalls of the company’s massive book search program have been the source of serious debate among librarians. With the proposed class action settlement—and a recent, probing critiqueof that settlement by Harvard University librarian Robert Darnton—the Google discussion has now entered a very public media phase. And somewhat surprisingly, libraries—the rock upon which Google Book Search is being built—seem to be increasingly on the defensive for the profession’s criticism of the deal.

In his recent essay, Darnton, a historian of the book, offered certainly the most elegant, and probably the most cogent critique of the proposed Google settlement and its implications to date. He warned of the looming potential for a monopoly on books, and a tipping of the copyright balance away from the public interest toward a pay-per-view world. His reward? To be compared to a “Progressive Era muckraker,” in the New York Times, and assailed as an elitist in the blogosphere.

The real monopolists?

This week on the Huffington Post, author Dan Agin, in an essay riddled with—if not based entirely on misperceptions—suggests that the real monopoly over books is already being exercised not by Google but by university libraries. He suggests that librarians’ criticism of the Google settlement may be, in fact, rooted in the university’s desire to protect its investment in revenue-generating libraries.

“Harvard University, for example, has a monopoly over its collection, as does Princeton, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and so on,” he writes. “If Google digitizes university library collections and makes the books in the public domain available free to the public, the university libraries will lose their monopoly and ultimately whatever revenue accrues directly or indirectly from that monopoly.”
He takes a not-so-veiled shot at Darnton, and writes that the “difference between the proposed Google paradigm and the present paradigm is that in the Google paradigm, Google will make their digitized library, which will be the largest library in existence, available free to the public via a computer terminal in all public libraries in America, while in the present paradigm, access to private university libraries is restricted to university insiders and outsiders who can pay for it.”

Misperceptions

Agin’s article represents stunning display of ignorance about both libraries, and the Google deal. In fact, Darnton—and other librarians—argue that public domain books scanned by Google should be available on any computer, not just one terminal at a public library. Many libraries, like those in the Boston Library Consortium are spending their own limited funds to launch scanning efforts that open their collections fully to the public.

Further, to assert that Harvard or Stanford are somehow interested in maintaining a restricted system ignores each university’s recent commitments—both in spirit and in real dollars—to opening their collections, including the recent OA mandate approved unanimously by Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

And lastly, for all the discussion private universities like Harvard are generating in the Google discussion, they are in fact minor players in Google Book Search. Indeed the program is built largely from public collections—including the entire collection at the University of Michigan. When Google decided to build its database, it turned not to publishers, but to libraries that collect, invest in, and maintain books long after publishers cease to care. Michigan, meanwhile, and its partners in the potentially game-changing HathiTrust (largely absent from major media coverage) have been relentless agents for the public, even while supportive of the Google settlement.

PR issue?
On library electronic discussion lists, blogs, and at the recent American Library Association meeting in Denver, librarians and others have engaged in more serious discussions of the issues at hand, and the potential impact of the Google deal on libraries and the public. There are of course sharp disagreements, and differing views, all of which serve only to elevate the level of understanding. Unfortunately, that discussion seems to be largely unseen by the public. That’s too bad, because, judging from Agin’s article, and articles in other major media, in addition to improving the Google deal, librarians may also be missing a prime opportunity to engage and educate the public about their libraries.

Darnton Essay Sparks Google Discussion, but Misunderstandings Persist - 2/3/2009 1:25:00 PM - Library Journal