Enter the Googlezon.

Along with LSC 555, I am also taking LSC 557, or Libraries and Information in Society, this semester. I'm currently working on a policy paper assignment evaluating the pending Google Books Settlement in the United States District Court of Southern District of New York . In a nutshell, between now and two years, the federal court will (or won't) approve the settlement agreement between Google and the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, entitling rights holders to receive royalties from institutional and consumer licensed subscriptions to access the over 10 million books scanned through the Google Library Project started in 2005. The Google Library Project entailed scanning the print materials of five major American and British Libraries: Harvard University Library, the New York Public Library, Stanford University Library, the University of Michigan Library, and the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. Additionally, some 15 libraries and consortia have now joined the Project and opened their collections to Google's scanning.

I will readily admit, Google Books is a fabulous research tool. It's also a great way to find content one wouldn't find by browsing a typical library, like first editions of classic novels. As an undergraduate student, I found the ability to do full text searches of the entire content of thousands of books to be such a time saver. For anyone familiar with the power yet simplicity of a Google keyword search, the possibilities of finding exactly what you want and where to find it, in mere seconds, is not only helpful but empowering. Yet despite these compelling benefits to society, there are several imperative issues that the Settlement does not clarify that could be troublesome, even dangerous, for readers, libraries, and society as a whole.

Some of the issues with Google have been touched upon in other fields. In journalism, the term "Googlezon" refers to the fictional super monopoly that is created by Google and Amazon in the flash film EPIC 2014 that predicts the end of news as we know it. In summary, Googlezon becomes the gatekeeper of all information, an outcome not too difficult to imagine in light of the impending Settlement that could create for Google an information monopoly.

Robert Darnton, director of the Harvard University Library, witnessed the scanning Google conducted at Harvard. While optimistic of the benefits of Google Books for scholars, Darnton is cautious of what the future of our "information society" would be like under the dominance of a private commercial business. Darnton clarifies his nuances in his latest book, The Case For Books: Past, Present and Future. Darnton understands the massive scanning endeavor by Google will create the largest library in history, with more books than can be purchased on Amazon. And while these books were scanned from libraries, which have an obligation for promoting public good over profit, Google will charge subscription licenses to these same institutions that gave Google their collections to scan. Ultimately the mission of libraries could be underminded by entrusting the digitalization of their collections to a commerial buisness.

Furthermore, for the coming "digital" generation, if certain books aren't available on Google, it will be as if they never existed, since younger generations, almost completely reliant on simple keyword search, may erroneously believe the only content worth accessing is already on Google. The Settlement, Darnton believes, could make Google impervious to competition because while Google has the financial resources to take the Authors Guild and AAP to court over a copyright settlement that lasted over four years, smaller organizations (i.e. libraries) do not. Therefore, libraries that have been maintaining digitized collections, some for longer than Google has, could find themselves in some very hot legal waters.

Additionally, there is no indication in the Settlement how Google will determine the price of its subscriptions for institutions and consumers, or any protection from later price increases. Darnton relates that this situation is already experienced regularly by librarians when database vendors of e-journals hike the costs of subscriptions to academic libraries. Librarians are forced to choose whether to pay more for access to journal articles their student faculty users need (and demand) from their libraries or loose current and retroactive access to articles. In this type of scenario, print may seem low-tech, but at least vendors can't physically seize all back issues of journals after a library's subscription is terminated. It's important for consumers especially to understand that the main difference between purchasing an e-book versus a print copy, is that with the earlier you are buying a license to view the content on the vendor's (a subsequently the publisher's) terms. Despite its technological sex appeal, purchasing an e-book gives consumers less rights to act on their purchased content than a print copy does and it will probably stay this way for a long while. For those still in doubt, I point to the slightly ironic example from last summer when Amazon deleted George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from Kindle devices.

I found Darnton's timely book to be especially refreshing, since there really aren't enough librarians who are truly invested in the public good to advocate for readers and the future of information access in this Settlement. Darnton reminds us that while Google Books is a great research tool and could bring wonderful innovations in broadening information access, Google is still a corporation that has to protect its bottom line over philanthropic endeavors. One of the major policy dilemmas for libraries in the 21st century is information access, and more librarians should be engaged and aware of how the impending Settlement could affect not only their individual operations but what Darnton calls our "information society". A passage I found particularly compelling reads: "Yes, we must digitize. But more important, we must democratize." A few examples of this in action: the Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg, Internet Public Library, Perseus Project, and the Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies.