From CNET News
Google Book Search? Try Google Library
By Tom Krazit
Is Google ready—or willing—to become a library?
Librarians, academics, and privacy advocates will gather Friday on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley to discuss the implications of Google's proposed settlement with publishers that, if implemented, will allow it to bring millions of books online.
At issue are concerns over privacy, quality, and Google's intent with the project, the only one of its kind in the U.S. to receive the legal authority to scan books that are out of print but under copyright protection—estimated by the Internet Archive to comprise 50 percent to 70 percent of all books published since 1923.
Almost from the day it was announced, the settlement has drawn scorn and scrutiny from authors, library groups, industry associations like the newly formed Open Book Alliance, and even the Department of Justice. Many are concerned that the settlement gives a private organization the sole right to essentially create and control a public good—a digital library—without explicit responsibilities to maintain that public good outlined in the settlement.
And, as UC Berkeley professor Geoffrey Nunberg put it, "this is the last library."...