Between the lines

Citation

Boese, K.C. (2006), "Between the lines", The Bottom Line, Vol. 19 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/bl.2006.17019daf.001

Between the lines

In the seemingly never ending drama of Google and its mission to digitize every book ever printed, the latest installment has just come across my desk. In reading the article, “Search me?” (Thompson, 2006), a few thoughts came to me that all libraries need to keep in mind as we watch this story unfold. Most of us are probably already aware that the outcome of the cases challenging Google’s right to digitize and disseminate copyrighted text will either mean libraries will see a dramatic increase in business, or a marked decline in use. My prediction would be an increase in use, and perhaps a better-informed user group, with an increased ability to provide faster, more accurate reference service.

The reasons libraries will have to contend with more volume in use are both historical and yet to be seen. Historically, as Michael Keller, Stanford University’s head librarian, pointed out in the Google article, when access to books increases, use increases. To draw a parallel, Keller pointed out that when the university digitized its card catalog, use of the collection jumped 50 percent. Similarly, if a large percentage of the world’s books were digitized, and freely text searchable, they would be used far more frequently. What is up for grabs is not who would use this material, but how they will get access to entire texts, who will get paid for that access, and who has the right to own the digital copies and deliver that information.

Google, trying to spin their project as a societal good, merely states that they need to digitize entire books for superior access and indexing. It is their contention that a text search will merely return a portion of the text to meet the users needs, and that this falls within fair use provisions of copyright. Accepting for the sake of argument that Google has the right to copy entire texts for the purpose of indexing, there is still a Pandora’s box of issues to sort out, most of them still centered around copyright.

In the best possible scenario, a Google search would recall the relevant snippet from the search query, and provide a full citation that would allow the information seeker to decide where to go from there. They could go to a local book store, an online book seller, or a library. With citation in hand, all parties concerned would have a clear understanding of what was needed. I think a scenario like this could be an outcome that all parties involved would find acceptable. It indexes, provides details for retrieval, lets patrons decide how they want to pursue getting the rest of the document, and does not infringe on copyright – again assuming Google has the right to copy in the first place. This is the cleanest possible solution, and comes close to true indexing. It would increase use of Google too, having this be the true win/win solution.

To believe that Google would be happy with this outcome would be naive. Considering the amount of work that is going into this project, the costs involved in developing new technology, and the amount of data that will need to live on servers and be maintained, Google will need to find ways to profit from their investment. How they decide to profit from this remains to be seen, both in their approach, and in response to the law suits.

The most logical way would be for Google to set up a print-on-demand service. Things get a little dicey if this is the course they choose. Can they legally sell information that they did not pay to copy? Will they have the right to profit on the work of others without signed contracts? Will they be considered a publisher themselves, and subject themselves to far more laws governing their behavior? And, what I really would like to know, is will information seekers rather pay to print out a book at home, using their own paper and printer, rather than purchase an already bound book? I think print-on-demand works great for articles, but is cumbersome for books. Even with out of print titles, there are very few titles I am willing to photocopy at my expense when I can use my library to borrow it for a few weeks.

A bigger issue with copyright, and one that is not in effect yet, but will have an impact on Google and libraries, is whether or not it is acceptable to borrow information when the borrower is knowingly going to profit from its use? This is being debated now with regard to corporate libraries ability to borrow information via interlibrary loan, assuming that the outcome of the loan is profit. Surely it will also come into play on whether Google is allowed to “index” entire texts, again assuming that eventually there will be profit from this transaction.

It seems to me that Google is split into two minds of thought. When it comes to “borrowing” books to scan, they clearly see themselves as library users, and feel they have the right to copy information in order to provide a new service or intellectual product, like and index, which invokes the transformative part of the fair use definition. Yet, when it comes to actually providing a product, they see anything less than full text as an inferior product.

The only thing that is certain, is that the definition of copyright will change based on the challenges to Google. If copyright is strictly upheld, and Google is allowed to scan for indexing, but not dissemination, then libraries will probably see an upsurge in users who have conducted full text searches on Google. If it is more liberally interpreted, we may have an opportunity to profit ourselves by selling digital images of our collections that we were previously prone not to consider. Either way, and regardless of how one feels about Google’s efforts, I think that the need for libraries will only increase, and if creative, there are going to be more opportunities to identify revenue streams for services we have not yet dreamed of.

Kent C. BoeseGreenberg Traurig, LLP, Washington, DC, USA