The impacts of google digitization projects on libraries By: J. Jasmine Chmiel

Virtual Symposium on Information & Technology in the Arts & Humanities SPONSORED BY ASIS&T SIG-AH & SIG-VIS HOSTED BY SJSU ASIS&T PRESENTATION – JASMINE CHMIEL The impacts of Google digitization projects on libraries

The impacts of google digitization projects on libraries By: J. Jasmine Chmiel

What is digitization? Digitization is the process of converting information sources, like books, to a digital format. Optical character recognition (OCR) software is used to convert printed text or images into a digital format, which can be searched, edited, and displayed online. The original digitization projects focused on archival and rare works. Mass digitization is the digital conversion of the entire contents of libraries without first making a selection of individual materials.

What is google doing? In 2003, Google launched Google Print, later renamed Google Books. In 2004, they launched the Google Library Project. Its intent was to make it easier for people to find books, through mass-digitization. Google’s ultimate goal was to work with publishers & libraries to scan every book in the world, and create a huge, searchable catalog of books in all languages. The Google Library Project partnered with major academic research libraries, including Oxford, Harvard, Stanford, and the New York Public Library. To date, they have completed their digitization projects with some university libraries. Also partnered with major publishing houses, to sell electronic access to their books online. Publishes 3 categories of books: Public domain works Out of print works (still under copyright) Works in print, and under copyright

What about the academics? Google Scholar was rolled out in 2004. It’s a search engine that indexes the full-text of scholarly articles, but doesn’t search the entire web. Citation counting was added to the index in 2006, putting Google Scholar in competition with expensive academic databases. In 2007, Google Scholar partnered with publishers to digitize and host journal articles, using the metadata necessary to make them searchable by topic in their index. As of 2012, Google Scholar’s index included the most peer-reviewed online journals of Europe & America’s largest scholarly publishers.

How did that work out? To date, Google Books has scanned over 30 million volumes. OCR quality control issues still exist and need to be improved to fix imaging and translation issues. Google uses the Book Industry Standards and Communications’ (BISAC) subject headings (3,000), not LOC (200,000), which is used by most academic libraries. A 2012 study (Chen) found that Google Books can retrieve almost all of the books cataloged in WorldCat, and that the coverage provided by Google Books’ variety of services (full-view, snippet, preview, library link, and Google search) provides a reliable and valuable resource for comprehensive book searches.

What do libraries think? In 2006, the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) held a symposium to discuss mass-digitization issues. Initially, libraries were worried that if e-books and digital scholarly materials were so easily available online, fewer people would visit libraries, or need librarians. Libraries and archives are concerned that Google won’t meet their exacting preservation and organization standards. Google just wanted to move forward with the project, and not let perfection be the enemy of the good. Still, it was very appealing for libraries to have their collections digitized for free, in a relatively quick period of time.

What do publishers think? Publishers were concerned that Google will be their competitor, and drive down prices below sustainability for their industry. The opposition argued that Google Books would be good for publishers, making their backlists more widely accessible, with Google assuming the entire fiduciary risk. Google Books only scans in-print copyrighted works with permissions, and then show only snippets. They will scan out-of-print, in-copyright books unless the rights-holder objects. Charges users for full-text of in-copyright works, but works in the public domain are free.

So, what’s the problem? Legal issues regarding copyright and fair use have been an issue most concerning to publishers and libraries. There has been debate over how to handle “orphan works” (works in copyright, but whose rights holders can no longer be traced), stating Google could gain a monopoly over those works. Libraries are still concerned about quality control – sites like “The Art of Google Books” show the OCR errors that occur during mass-digitization projects. Some academic institutions involved in the the Google Books & Libraries Projects partnered to form the Hathi Trust Their mission is to steward and otherwise ensure the permanence of the digitized collections, should Google cease to exist in the future.

What happened with the lawsuit? The Authors Guild, and the Assoc. of American Publishers sued Google in separate suits in 2005, claiming “massive copyright infringement,” by created a full-text search index without permission of the rights holders. Google claimed “fair use,” and stated that they were in effect creating a highly accurate card catalog that indexed every word in a book. Equates free “snippets” to users browsing in a bookstore. They reached a settlement in 2008 (Google would have to pay authors & create a Books Rights Registry), but the decision was rejected in 2011, saying the settlement would give Google an advantage over competitors, particularly regarding orphan works. In 2013, the same judge reversed his own ruling, supporting Google’s claim that their initiative falls under “fair use,” in that Google Books “benefits society,” and actually boosts sales for authors & publishers, functioning like an “in-store book display.”

How about the Hathi Trust Suit? Authors Guild v. Hathi Trust (2014) – Authors Guild sued academic libraries, who had digitized millions of in-copyright books, in order to create a digital search tool to locate books, and conduct text-mining across the volumes. The court ruled that universities are protected regarding mass-digitization by the fair use doctrine. (Adler, 2015). The court’s ruling states that the process of digitization, and the storage of digital files, is a fair use if the libraries provide full-text search functionality, and full-text access for disabled individuals. (Adler, 2015). Regarding the non-disabled, use is “transformative” if the function or purpose of the use is different from that of the original work. (Adler, 2015). The court endorsed the practice of retaining digitized copies in redundant databases to ensure the works’ continued availability after copyright term expiration. (Adler, 2015).

So, what happens next? Now that the copyright and fair use issues are worked out, libraries and publishers can continue to collaborate with Google to complete their digitization projects, without fear of infringement, or legal issues. What happens to the collections if Google ceases to exist? Besides the Hathi Trust, would anyone else to step in to steward the collections? Could anyone else afford to manage the volume and scope of the project? Libraries should evaluate their own internally developed products, like federated search tools, against Google’s products, like Google Scholar. How do they measure up? Taking advantage of Google’s products and partnerships can allow librarians to focus their time and resources toward providing personally tailored and specialized research services to their patrons.

Questions? From: http://theartofgooglebooks.tumblr.com

References Adler, P.S. (2015). Special issue on copyright. Research Library Issues: A Report from ARL, CNI, and SPARC, 285, 1–2. http://publications.arl.org/rli285/ Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google, inc., 954 F. Supp. 2d 282 (S.D.N.Y. 2013). Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust, 755 F.3d 87 (2014). Chen, X. (2012). Google Books and WorldCat: A comparison of their content. Online Information Review, 36(4), 507-516. The Art of Google Books (2015, April 20). Retrieved from: http://theartofgooglebooks.tumblr.com

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