Google Book Search

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Google Book Search
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Google Book Search screenshot
Developed by Google
OS Any (web based application)
Genre Online Library Book Search
Website http://books.google.com/

Google Book Search is a tool from Google that searches the full text of books that Google scans, OCRs, and stores in its digital database. The service was formerly known as Google Print when it was introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2004. When relevant to a user's keyword search, up to three results from the Google Book Search index are displayed above search results in the Google Web Search service (google.com). A user may also search just for books at the dedicated Google Book Search service. Clicking a result from Google Book Search opens an interface in which the user may view pages from the book as well as content-related advertisements and links to the publisher's website and booksellers. Through a variety of access limitations and security measures, some based on user-tracking, Google limits the number of viewable pages and attempts to prevent page printing and text copying of material under copyright.[1]

The Google Book Search service remains in a beta stage but the underlying database continues to grow. Google Book Search allows public-domain works and other out-of-copyright material to be downloaded in PDF format. For users outside the United States, though, Google must be sure that the work in question is indeed out of copyright under local laws. According to a member of the Google Book Search Support Team, "Since whether a book is in the public domain can often be a tricky legal question, we err on the side of caution and display at most a few snippets until we have determined that the book has entered the public domain."[2]

Many of the books are scanned using Google's undisclosed proprietary method, most likely through the use of a robotic book scanner, where books are placed into the machine by a human operator and "scanned" (in practice, a digital camera is used at a distance) at a rate of 1,000 pages per hour.[3] The rapidity of the scanning precludes checking the pages. Hence, some pages are not scanned or are scanned in such a fashion as to make them unreadable.[4][5][6][7]

As of 2006, Google has not revealed how many books they have already scanned. Google did say that it is scanning more than 3,000 books per day, a rate that translates into more than 1 million annually.[8] The entire project may exceed $US 100 million dollars.[9]. As of March 2007, The New York Times reported that Google has already digitized one million volumes at an estimated cost of US$5 million[8]

Microsoft started a similar project, Live Search Books, in late 2006.[10]

Contents

[edit] Timeline

Hand digitization, University of Michigan
Hand digitization, University of Michigan

[edit] 2004

  • December 2004—Google signaled an extension to its Google Print initiative known as the Google Print Library Project.[11] Google announced partnerships with several high-profile university and public libraries, including the University of Michigan, Harvard (Harvard University Library), Stanford (Green Library), Oxford (Bodleian Library), and the New York Public Library. According to press releases and university librarians, Google plans to digitize and make available through its Google Book Search service approximately 15 million volumes within a decade. The announcement soon triggered controversy, as publisher and author associations challenged Google's plans to digitize, not just books in the public domain, but also titles still under copyright.

[edit] 2005

  • November 2005—Google changed the name of this service from Google Print to Google Book Search.[12] Its program enabling publishers and authors to include their books in the service was renamed "Google Books Partner Program" (see Google Library Partners) and the partnership with libraries became Google Books Library Project.

[edit] 2006

[edit] 2007

  • January 2007—The University of Texas at Austin announced that it would join the Book Search digitization project. At least one million volumes will be digitized from the University's 13 library locations.
  • March 2007—The Bavarian State Library announced a partnership with Google to scan more than a million public domain and out-of-print works in German as well as English, French, Italian, Latin, and Spanish.[14]
  • May 2007—A book digitizing project partnership was announced jointly by Google and the Cantonal and University Library of Lausanne.[15]
  • May 2007—The Boekentoren Library of Ghent University will participate with Google in digitizing and making digitized versions of 19th century books in the French and Dutch languages available online.[16]
  • June 2007—The Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) announced that its twelve member libraries would participate in scanning 10 million books over the course of the next six years.[17]
  • July 2007—Keio University became Google's first library partner in Japan with the announcement that they would digitize at least 120,000 public domain books.[18]
  • August 2007—Google announced that it would digitize up to 500,000 both copyrighted and public domain items from Cornell University Library. Google will also provide a digital copy of all works scanned to be incorporated into the university’s own library system.[19]
  • September 2007—Google added a feature that allows users to share snippets of books that are in the public domain. The snippets may appear exactly as they do in the scan of the book or as plain text.[20]
  • September 2007—Google debuts a new feature called "My Library" which allows users to create personal customized libraries, selections of books that they can label, review, rate, or full-text search.[21]
  • December 2007—Columbia University was added as a partner in digitizing public domain works.[22]

[edit] 2008

  • May 2008 - Microsoft tapers off and plans to end its scanning project which reached 750,000 books and 80 million journal articles [23]

[edit] Google Books Library Project participants

The number of participating institutions has grown since the inception of the Google Books Library Project;[11] The University of Mysore has been mentioned in many media reports as being a library partner.[24][25]They are not, however, listed as a partner by Google.[26]

[edit] Initial partners

[edit] Additional partners

Other institutional partners have joined the Project since the partnership was first announced.

[edit] Opposition and perceived shortcomings

 It has been suggested that some of the information in this article's Criticism or Controversy section(s) be merged into other sections to achieve a more neutral presentation. (Discuss)

Google Book Search remains controversial.

While librarians hail the initiative for its potential to offer unprecedented access to what may become the largest online corpus of human knowledge,[27][28] the publishing industry and writers' groups have criticized the project's inclusion of snippets of copyrighted works as infringement. The Authors Guild of America[29] and Association of American Publishers[30][31] have separately sued Google, citing "massive copyright infringement." Google claims its project represents a fair use, and is the digital age equivalent of a card catalog with every word in the publication indexed.

Some European politicians and intellectuals have criticized Google's effort on "language-imperialism" grounds, arguing that because the vast majority of books proposed to be scanned are in English, it will result in disproportionate representation of natural languages in the digital world. German, Russian, and French, for instance, are popular languages in scholarship; the disproportionate online emphasis on English could shape access to historical scholarship, and, ultimately, the growth and direction of future scholarship. Among these critics is Jean-Noël Jeanneney, the president of the Bibliothèque nationale de France[32] In June 2006, a French publisher announced its intention to sue Google France.[33] In 2006 a previously-filed German lawsuit was withdrawn.[34]

In March 2007, Thomas Rubin, associate general counsel for copyright, trademark, and trade secrets at Microsoft, accused Google of violating copyright law with their book search service. Rubin specifically criticized Google's policy of freely copying any work until notified by the copyright holder to stop.[35]

Siva Vaidhyanathan, associate professor of Media Studies and Law at the University of Virginia has published the opinion,[36] that the project poses a danger for the doctrine of fair use, because the fair use claims are arguably so excessive that it may cause judicial limitation of that right.[37]

Google licensing of public domain works is also an area of concern [38], Google apparently is claiming a restrictive 'No-Commercial use' term in respect of the PDF electronic versions it provides, as well as using digital watermarking techniques with them. Some articles that are in the public domain, such as all works created by the U.S. Federal government, are still treated like other works under copyright, and therefore locked after 1922.[39]

While Google Book Search has digitized large numbers of journal back issues, its scans do not include the metadata required for identifying specific articles in specific issues. This has led the makers of Google Scholar to start their own program to digitize and host older journal articles (in agreement with their publishers).[40]

[edit] Download tools

Freeware like Orbit Downloader are available from pirate websites like leechvideo.com to download documents from full view category. As of March 2008, this vulnerability remains exposed.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Greg Duffy (March 2005). Google's Cookie and Hacking Google Print. Kuro5hin.
  2. ^ Ryan Sands (November 9, 2006). From the mail bag: Public domain books and downloads (blog). Inside Google Book Search.
  3. ^ Kelly, Kevin. "Scan This Book!", New York Times Magazine, May 14, 2006. Retrieved on 2008-03-07. "When Google announced in December 2004 that it would digitally scan the books of five major research libraries to make their contents searchable, the promise of a universal library was resurrected. ... From the days of Sumerian clay tablets till now, humans have "published" at least 32 million books, 750 million articles and essays, 25 million songs, 500 million images, 500,000 movies, 3 million videos, TV shows and short films and 100 billion public Web pages." 
  4. ^ In Species Plantarum, it is difficult to find early pages (no pagination) and an image of the robotic page turner is seen.
  5. ^ In The Merry-Go-Round, there are pages (e.g. 326) blocked by debris on the scanner.
  6. ^ In The Making of a Saint , pages (i.e. page 4) are cut in two and unreadable.
  7. ^ In Italian Villas by Edith Wharton, some pages cut off, missing, or un-readable.
  8. ^ a b "History, Digitized (and Abridged)", New York Times, March 11, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-04-10. "Google, on its own, is digitizing books at the Library of Congress, which has its hands full with other items. ... In its quest to scan every one of the tens of millions of books ever published, Google has already digitized one million volumes. Google refuses to say how much it has spent on the venture so far, but outside experts estimate the figure at at least $5 million. The company has also been scanning and indexing academic journals to make them searchable, and is working with the Patent Office to digitize thousands of patents dating back to 1790." 
  9. ^ CIO Today; December 20, 2006
  10. ^ "Microsoft starts online library in challenge to Google Books." AFP Worldwide.
  11. ^ a b O'Sullivan, Joseph and Adam Smith. "All booked up," Googleblog. December 14, 2004.
  12. ^ Jen Grant (November 17, 2005). Judging Book Search by its cover (blog). Googleblog.
  13. ^ UW-Madion + WHS + Google digitization project partnership announced
  14. ^ Bavarian State Library + Google digitizing project partnership announced
  15. ^ Reed, Brock. "La Bibliothèque, C'est Google" (Wired Campus Newsletter), Chronicle of Higher Education. May 17, 2007.
  16. ^ Ghent/Gent + Google digitizing project partnership announced
  17. ^ CIC + Google digitizing project partnership announced
  18. ^ Keio + Google digitizing project partnership announced
  19. ^ Cornell + Google digitizing project partnership announced
  20. ^ Google's digitized "snippets" feature announced
  21. ^ Google's "personal library" feature announced
  22. ^ Columbia + Google digitizing project partnership announced
  23. ^ "Microsoft Will Shut Down Book Search Program", New York Times, May 24, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-05-24. "Microsoft said it had digitized 750,000 books and indexed 80 million journal articles." 
  24. ^ Ars Technica
  25. ^ Hindustani Times "Google to digitise 800,000 books at Mysore varsity"
  26. ^ Google Library Partners
  27. ^ Bergquist, Kevin. "Google project promotes public good", The University Record, University of Michigan, 2006-02-13. Retrieved on 2007-04-11. 
  28. ^ Pace, Andrew K. (January 2006). Is This the Renaissance or the Dark Ages?. American Libraries. American Library Association. Retrieved on 2007-04-11. “Google made instant e-book believers out of skeptics even though 10 years of e-book evangelism among librarians had barely made progress.”
  29. ^ Aiken, Paul (2005-09-20). Authors Guild Sues Google, Citing "Massive Copyright Infringement" (press release). The Authors Guild. Retrieved on 2007-04-11.
  30. ^ Gilbert, Alorie. "Publishers sue Google over book search project", CNET News, 2005-10-19. Retrieved on 2007-04-11. 
  31. ^ The McGraw Hill Companies, Inc.; Pearson Education, Inc.; Penguin Group (USA) Inc.; Simon and Schuster, Inc.; John Wiley and Sons, Inc. Plaintiffs, v. Google Inc., Defendant. Retrieved on 2007-10-05. PDF file of the complaint. SD. N.Y. Case No. 05-CV-8881-JES.
  32. ^ Jean-Noël Jeanneney (2006-10-23). Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge: A View from Europe (book abstract; Foreword by Ian Wilson). ISBN 0-226-39577-4. 
  33. ^ John Oates. "French publisher sues Google", The Register, June 7, 2006. 
  34. ^ Danny Sullivan (2006-06-28). Google Book Search Wins Victory In German Challenge (blog). Search Engine Watch. Retrieved on 2006-11-11.
  35. ^ Thomas Claburn. "Microsoft Attorney Accuses Google Of Copyright Violations", InformationWeek, March 6, 2007. 
  36. ^ Siva Vaidhyanathan,. “The Googlization of Everything and the Future of Copyright,” University of California Davis Law Review volume 40 (March 2007), pp. 1207–1231, pdf
  37. ^ First Monday Transcript September 2007
  38. ^ Michael Liedtke. "Publishers Protest Google's Online Library Project", Associated Press, May 24, 2005. 
  39. ^ Robert B. Townsend, Google Books: Is It Good for History?, Perspectives (September 2007).
  40. ^ Barbara Quint : Changes at Google Scholar: A Conversation With Anurag Acharya Information Today, August 27, 2007

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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