Notes on Week 3 Readings

Digitization: Is It Worth It?
In my experience? A resounding, "Yes!" For the access it offers, for the preservation capabilities, I say Yes! Yes! Yes! However, I have to temper this enthusiasm with the admission that I have only experienced the positive aspects of digitization in the academic library arena. I have been on the take with none of the give. As a Interlibrary Loan librarian , I have fielded many a request for antique and rare items. In the past, my queries nearly always ended in disappointment for the patron. Few libraries owned them, even fewer had copies that could scanned (much less loaned), and often by the time I had made all the queries the patron no longer had need for the item. Then came Google Books. In the past month alone I have been able to satisfy the research needs of two faculty members with the help of Google. They needed texts from 1877 and 1906, both of which I found in Google Books, and I all had to do was pass along a URL.
I do think the Lee does raise some valid points, but I don't see how they could possibly negate the obvious advantages. For example, the costs of undertaking such a project. Our library just announced in the past couple of days that we plan on digitizing a few major collections in our archives. The costs could reach upwards of $300,000 for personnel, equipment, etc. We plan to offset most of this with a grant. In the end, I believe a large number of scholars and other interested parties will benefit from our work. If donors are then attracted by such a high-profile project(and in my experience they usually are- if there is a perm. nameplate involved), then all the better.

Herald Tribune Article
This was an interesting article, but certain aspects left me a bit puzzled. Jean-Noel Jeanneney's (the former head of the Bibliotheque Nationale) comment about America's crushing domination struck me as a bit alarmist. Why would partnering with an American company endanger future generations view of the world? I did not believe that when Google partners with a library that it is Google that dictates what will be scanned. Doesn't the burden/ opportunity to decide what materials to present to the world ultimately rest on the library? If I am missing something, I would love to know. Please share your thoughts.

A Few Thoughts on the Google Books Project
After reading the very first line of this article, I thought I would get some sort of contrast to my Pollyanna-positive experience with Google Books. However, Smith never explains to my satisfaction from where the "unease" stems. I agreed wholeheartedly with most of his article. However, the lack of negatives led me to search further to uncover some of the problems folks had with Google Books. I ran across a few after a cursory Internet search. It appears that some people think that Google is not maintaing enough quality control. Quality is being lost for the sake of quantity. Pages are poorly scanned or skipped entirely. Sometimes the meta data (descriptions) of the material was wrong. One blogger mentioned a book that was listed by Google Books as being published in 1953, thus putting it outside of copyright and offering only a snippet view. A closer examination revealed that this particular volume was actually published in 1917, thus making it part of the public domain and the full-text should have been available. Another blogger added that by law copyright does not apply to US govt. documents. However, Google only offered snippet or limited views of several government documents. The points do not severely diminish my positive experiences, but it was nice to get a different perspective.

Muddiest Point
I don't really have a muddiest point this week as much as a blown-away brain. I just can't believe how fast our technology is moving. I had no idea that a hertz was in its simplest form was still lightning fast. Amazing!