The news is that Yahoo! announced they’ve formed the Open Content Alliance. Though that certainly fits the Google versus Yahoo! story that newsmen want to report on now, it’s somewhat disingenuous to the Internet Archive, which has been beating the Open Content drum for a while. But Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive doesn’t seem to care. He was talking about it on the Yahoo! Search Blog yesterday:

Is Open Content the next step in the traditions of Open Source and an Open Network? Many people seem to think so (and wouldn’t it be great?). Working with libraries, government institutions, archives, technology companies, web companies– and we all are saying the same thing– it is time to have more great material available on the Internet and to be able to have it be open and free.

The opportunity before all of us is living up to the dream of the Library of Alexandria and then taking it a step further– Universal access to all knowledge. Interestingly, it is now technically doable. Then the question became– is it in the interest of enough people and institutions to get there? Some hang-ups have been around costs, rights, and guidelines for sharing. All of these things were worked out for their domains by Internet folks and open source folks in the last few decades. But how are we going build a system that has everything available to everyone?

I am jazzed to say that a group of organizations is starting an Open Content Alliance to try out answers by joining new and existing collections. We are looking for more contributors and helpers. We are starting with a set of principles.

Google, of course, made news a while ago when they announced a plan to scan the entire collections of a few libraries in the US and Britain. But they’ve run up against some copyright problems lately and the future of that plan is in doubt, at least according to Siva Vaidhyanathan in his interview in last week’s On The Media.

It will be interesting to watch these two internet titans do battle. The competition does them both good, so long as it doesn’t kill them (or leave either one vulnerable to a buyout by Microsoft).

tags: alliance, book scanning, brewster kahle, google print, internet archive, library, library digitization, library of alexandria, open content, open content alliance, yahoo, yahoo open content alliance

With all the talk about Google scanning or not scanning copyrighted books, I was happy to see Laura Quilter talking about Google as a library.

The Internet Archive is certainly a library. [...] Libraries may be private, semi-private, public; for- or not-for-profit; paper or digital. Why is Google not a library?

More interestingly, she casts a critical eye on the Texaco decision that everybody points to as the guiding law on fair use. This, and the rest of her blog are good reading.

tags: agu, agu v. texaco, american geophysical union, copyfight, copyright, fair use, fairuse, google, google print, internet archive, laura quilter, library, private/public, texaco

Search Engine Watch did a story about how to use Google and Amazon’s tools to search full-text content inside books.

The gist? when you can get to the tools and where they’ve got content, it does a lot to make books as accessible and open as electronic content.

Sort of related: I’ve spoken of Google Print before and there’s more in the Libraries and Networked Information category.

tags: amazon, book search, electronic content, full text content, google, google print, inside books, search engine, search engine watch, search full text, search inside the book

I’m listening and watching along with the EDUCAUSE online presentation from the Universities of Michigan and Oxford and their participation in Google Print.

Presenters:

• John P. Wilkin
  Associate University Librarian
  Library Information Technology and Technical and Access Services
  University of Michigan
   
• Reginald Carr
  Director of University Library Services and Bodley’s Librarian
  University of Oxford

Google Print is old news by now, but it’s interesting to get their reports on it.

Readers should take a look at U of Michigan’s Making of America project that does a lot (more, in some areas) of what Google is looking to do with Google Print.

Interesting questions to Wilkin (paraphrased):

• Q: Why will U Mich be maintaining their own digital copy of these materials separate from Google’s?
• A: The needs of the university are more specific and detailed than what Google can or likely will address. Example: scholarship demands permanence, electronic citations must be made durable.
   
• Q: Will JSTOR titles be digitized?
• A: For those JSTOR titles in our collection, yes they will be digitized. But, one difference that should be noted is that article level access and metadata will likely not be available in Google Print

Those questions interest me because they represent some of the differences between Google’s needs and libraries’ needs. I look forward to what Google is doing, but I worry that some outside the library community might mistake or underestimate the value of libraries in a Google Print world.

An archive of the presentations will be available at the EDUCAUSE Live website later today.

Technorati Tags: educause, google, google print, libraries, library, library information, library information technology, university of michigan, university of oxford