Google Print launches online library
But don’t burn your books yet
Tessa Vanderhart, Staff
Photo by David Lipnowski.
With the official launch of Google Print, despite lawsuits from American authors and publishers, and concerns over copyright law, publicly owned books can now be accessed online, for free.
And, without a national digital library, the internet giant remains the main source for digitized print media in Canada.
The service works like any Google search to find the most relevant content. If the content is in the public domain, whole texts can be accessed for free, one page at a time. Currently, most of the books available are public domain works — there are no official numbers available yet — but, through collaborations with Harvard, the University of Michigan, Stanford and New York Public libraries, the holdings of this unofficial collection are set to explode with historical, rare, and out of print digitized texts.
Google Print has come under attack by the Author’s Guild and Association of American Publishers for the potential to violate copyright law by making available whole books, and the potential to sell these books at a later date. This would prevent authors from receiving pay from sales after the book comes into the public domain.
In Canada, although accessing these books is legal, there are no provisions for the online purchase of books. More importantly, the law does not address accessing this type of information — something that may need to be addressed in copyright law.
“The real question is what needs to happen for Google Print to launch digitization in Canada,” said Michael Geist, a Canada Research Chair in internet and e-commerce law.
“The problem is not that Google Print isn’t accessible to Canadians. The problem is that Google can’t launch a Canadian Google Print focused on Canadian titles because our fair dealing approach would not cover the digitization of the work.”
Geist explained that a move toward fair dealing legislation — away from current copyright law which only covers fair use (in other words, you can use it but you can’t own it) — could help the creation of a national digital library in Canada, as well as having other implications on copyright law.
This change would, “open up the narrow band of exceptions under Canadian copyright law to allow for a fuller analysis on lots of issues — everything from classroom use to making a personal copy of a CD,” said Geist.
James Sherrett, author of Up in Ontario and a graduate of the University of Manitoba, said that he cannot wait to make his book available online.
“From what I’ve seen of it, the intention is really not to circumvent copyright laws,” said Sherrett.
Instead, he sees it as a way to sell more books — and, because more pages generate more ad revenue, the service should act as an incentive to writers and Google alike to add more books.
“For me, and for almost all Canadian writers, you don’t make that much money,” he said. “The real asset you’re trying to build is a name.”
And, by making snippets of an author’s work readily available, Google Print makes it easier for readers to browse and become aware of new books — as well as building an author’s reputation.
Sherrett has one concern: by indexing content in they way that it does, Google Print may provide a technical gateway to pay-for access services, making entire new books available online.
“What happens if it moves into the public domain?” he asked.
Sherrett looks far into the future, when his copyright over Up in Ontario expires, 70 years after his death. At that time, the book will move into the public domain — which means that it will become a valuable asset to anyone who has the authoritative copy.
“The problem is that most works are useless,” he notes. It’s difficult, if not impossible to predict which books will be worth money in the distant future — but Google Print could be an effective way to effectively hedge bets on which books will last.
Donna Breyfogle, the university’s associate director of library collections, is not concerned about the legal battles faced in the U.S. — rather, her concern is with improving the digital holdings of the U of M.
“We’re watching what they’re doing with interest, like a lot of other people,” said Breyfogle. “That’s not to say we’re not acquiring digital books and doing digitization.”
Currently, the university is working to digitize special collections and historic materials, and is doing so in conjunction with other universities, such as the University of Alberta — the U of M has lent several books to create a digital version of a prairie bibliography.
“It’s making accessible material that is even more difficult of the majority of users to get access to. [That’s] the approach that a lot of Canadian libraries have taken so far,” said Breyfogle.
But Breyfogle is convinced that the library, like the novel, will not fall by the wayside as new technologies are pursued.
“While our circulation of material may be going down a bit, our turnstile count of people coming in, physically coming in to use the space is actually going up . . . . there will still be a need for a physical library,” she said.
“The need for print will remain.”
