The article “Future Reading” by Anthony Grafton discusses the future of research, reading and books. The article explains that Google was trying to create a comprehensive catalog of all the books ever printed. The goal of the project, Google Book Search was “to build a comprehensive index of all the books in the world.” In a related project, the Google Library Project, Google works with great libraries around the world in attempt to digitize them. In addition, Microsoft and Amazon have undertaken similar projects .
The idea behind these projects is that information, books, research and ideas will become connected and accessible. Grafton quotes Kevin Kelly of Wired as saying “all the books in the world would become a single liquid fabric of interconnected words and ideas.” Many ideas have been bandied about as to what the ultimate goal of these projects are. They range from all books being available online to a total history of the human race.
The main idea of the article is that due to some inherent glitches in this process, people will still have to use both the Internet and libraries. According to Grafton, it appears as if the cataloging will not be as fluid as hoped but will be a series of different tools that can be used in tandem; some by all, some by those who can pay for it. At this point, all things are not digitized. Perhaps, some things never will be. One of the problems raised in the article is that of copyrighting. Of the estimated thirty-two to one hundred million books ever published, approximately seventy-five percent of those are out of copyright. Google has been scanning these items, but not making them available to the public as of yet. This does seem to be a slippery slope for Google and this project.
Another interesting aspect of this project is making information available to those who normally don’t have access to it. The article talks about poverty being equated with the ability to access information. Because certain books from poorer, third world countries may not generate revenue for subscriber services, they are less likely to be digitized. However, it goes on to discuss how widespread information is with the Web. It provides information, ideas and books to those who would not have had access to them as recent as twenty years ago.
In closing, the article suggests that if you want the experience of reading books, of looking at bindings, marginalia, etc you must use your local library. Although these projects are quite ambitious, there are still some volumes, first editions, documents, etc that one must experience in a hands-on way. The combination of Internet and library will increase manifold the ability to research effectively.
October 2, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Very good!