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On 5/19/09 5/19/09 € 9:59 AM, "Ethan Gruber" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Google isn't a dumb company. They knew this would be the result all along. > The real losers here are the libraries, especially the ones that funded the > packaging and transport of their materials to the Google scanning centers > (because Google didn't pay for that, fyi) But hey, it looks good to be part > of such a prestigious group of libraries in partnering with Google to > deliver content freely* to the public! > > *not free > > Pardon my cynicism, > Ethan Gruber I think that's an overly pessimistic assessment. There is a growing corpus of freely available content being managed by the Hathi Trust[1], that already numbers in the hundreds of thousands of volumes, and soon likely to be over a million. Also, since government documents are included, there is a surprising number of post-1923 public domain titles. So let's not rush to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Roy [1] http://www.hathitrust.org/