My main read this week has been The Case for Books, which was published in 2009 and starts off by looking at Google Book Search and Google's attempt to scan all the books available. According to the author, GBS will revolutionize access to information because it will have the contents of all books and could make them available to all.

But I'm not so sure about it. Yes, the full text of The Case for Books is available on Google Books so Google has made this book available to all for free. But if we only rely on Google Books then any book not in a digital format with a single huge company doesn't exist. We're seeing some of this as Amazon closes it's periodical system which puts many magazines in serious jeopardy of of closing for good.

This is similar to when Facebook lied about video which got many sites to focus on video and then killed them when Facebook decided they were no longer interested in video. Facebook acted to serve it's own interests and suffered little consequence for their actions, while businesses folded under the lies of a multi-billion dollar company.

Letting Google scan books would give them enormous power over the field of books. They would then have a monopoly over the scanning of books because the proposed settlement would allow Google to continue scanning while forcing any new competitor to negotiate with every single rights holder on their own. No startup competitor would have the legal funds to support that push, so Google would own all the knowledge in the world and get to do with it as they will.

Years later, as we watch corporations gobble up our data and charge us to access it again, I'm happy that the Google settlement was put on hold. No it wasn't the publishing industry that stood up to Google, but someone drew a line in the sand and forced Google to stop. This does put the responsibility on our public institutions to hold copies of books, and thus the responsibility on us to make sure these institutions are funded adequately so they can achieve their mission.

How have you help your library lately? Have you taken out a book? Have you checked in with your city to make sure the library is adequately funded?

Other Reads about Books

  • The Library Book - excellent read about the place of libraries, and a mysterious library fire

  • The Diary of a Book Seller - What the title says, follow the diary of a book seller in England

  • Book Wars - good read that addresses Google, publishers, and how Amazon has harmed the book industry

  • The Lost Art of Reading - a look at how we have lost the important art of reading a physical book

My other book finished this week was The Librarianist. This is a novel less about Libraries, and more about the life of someone that was a Librarian. No it doesn't focus so much on books, but the life he lead and the love he lost. I enjoyed it.