Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Google to Scan Books From Big Libraries

Forbes.com

"Google Inc. is trying to establish an online reading room for five major libraries by scanning stacks of hard-to-find books into its widely used Internet search engine.

The ambitious initiative announced late Monday gives Mountain View, Calif.-based Google the right to index material from the New York public library as well as libraries at four universities - Harvard, Stanford, Michigan and Oxford in England...

"This is the day the world changes," said John Wilkin, a University of Michigan librarian working with Google. "It will be disruptive because some people will worry that this is the beginning of the end of libraries. But this is something we have to do to revitalize the profession and make it more meaningful."

The books scanned from libraries will be included in the same Google index the spans the Web. By throwing everything into the same pot, Google risks burying the library book results far below the Web documents containing the same search terms term, reducing the usefulness of the feature, said Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch."

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