Criticisms of Google Book Search
Recently, there have been a couple of criticisms of Google Book Search that go beyond the knee-jerk arguments we hear from time to time.
In a post on the ACRL blog (Siva Vaidhyanathan Questions Google Book Search, by Marc Meola, ACRLog, April 23rd, 2007), Meola describes a presentation by Siva Vaidhyanathan at the Drexel University Libraries' Scholarly Communication Symposium. Siva asks some pointed questions of Google and its library partners. I was particularly struck by this thought:
At one point, Vaidhyanathan compared Google Book Search to the Human Genome Project. Here, he claimed, a for-profit company named Celera demonstrated it could do the work better and faster, but governments declined, recognizing that this information should not be privatized. Now Vaidhyanathan became animated, stating that it should be the same for knowledge and asking, "since when is expediency one of the core values of librarianship?"
In a post at the AHA blog (Google Books: What's Not to Like?. by Robert Townsend, American Historical Association Blog, April 30, 2007), Townsend notes the problems he found with Google Book search included poor scan quality, faulty metadata, and "truncated public domain."
Over the past three months I spent a fair amount of time on the site as part of a research project on the early history of the profession, and from a researcher's point of view I have to say the results were deeply disconcerting.
For specifics about Google Book Search and government documents, see: Need Full Access to Gov Docs in Google Book Search.
Continue readingNeed Full Access to Gov Docs in Google Book Search
An Open Letter to Google, William Patry, and Google's Library Partners
All I'm asking for is full access for the public to government documents on Google BookSearch. These documents are in the public domain and therefore should not be limited by claims of copyright, by Google or by the Library Partners.Also see: Google Book Search treats government documents as copyrighted material
It looks as if Google is definitely considering all post-1923 works under copyright.Continue reading
State-by-State Report on Authentication of Online Legal Resources
While there is an abundance of state legal resources (laws, regulations, court opinions, etc), in most cases they can't be used in courts of law or for other legal purposes because its the print version that is considered "legally official." The American Association of Law Libraries has just released this new 50 state report outlining the status of online legal materials: State-by-State Report on Authentication of Online Legal Resources This report was released in conjunction with the National Summit on Authentication of Digital Information, which AALL held April 20-21 in Chicago. According to AALL, The 50 delegates who participated in this event were a distinguished group of individuals: judges, state government officials, attorneys, and leaders of AALL and of other organizations, such as the American Bar Association. They were invited because of their interest and expertise in some aspect of legal/government information. Proceedings from the summit will shortly be posted to the AALL web site. Continue reading
AALL & SLA Support GPO Funding, Will you?
On May 1, 2007, Mary Alice Baish of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) testified in support of full funding for the Government Printing Office (GPO) before the House Committee on Appropriations for AALL and the Special Libraries Association (SLA). While readers know that FGI has its differences with GPO, it plays a vital role in informing American citizens through its publishing, the Federal Depository Library Program, and of course, GPO Access. In addition, GPO's proposed Future Digital System (FDSys) could be a vital PART of any government information ecosystem of the future. Like every other federal agency, GPO has been operating under a continuing resolution which held it to FY 2006 funding even though we are nearly at FY 2008. As Mary Alice points out, fully funding GPO’s request of $45.61 million for the Salaries and Expenses (S&E) account that funds the FDLP; $109.54 million for Congressional Printing and Binding; and $26.82 million for the revolving fund is vital for several reason including:
- The S&E request includes necessary funds for the cataloging, indexing, and distribution of Federal publications in print and electronic formats to depository libraries and other recipients designated by law.
- Providing money for digitizing pre-1976 cataloging records; cataloging documents harvested from agency Web sites and improving the GPO Access system.
- To provide GPO with GPO with the ability publish all the important congressional documents of the 110th Congress. In addition, $5 million of the CP&B request is needed to ensure that the 2006 U.S. Code, compiled by the Law Revision Counsel, is published and distributed to members of Congress and depository libraries in a timely fashion.
- Provide the last third of funding to bring FDSys online.
- Helping GPO to fulfill its partnership agreements with libraries around the country.
DomeNation: TV show about the intersection of technology and politics
Jerome Armstrong of the progressive blog MyDD and conservative Republican David All have launched an Internet-based TV show about the intersection of technology and politics. David says, "We’ll cover the beat from our perspective as admitted-partisan political operatives." You can see it at youtube.com/user/domeNation Watch it now! The first one is only three minutes long. Continue reading