The Race to Create a : Books vs. the Klara Maidenberg, FIS2309, Design of Electronic Text

Abstract In recent years, a number of organizations have begun the task of digitizing great numbers of books and making them accessible via the Internet. The two largest and best publicized initiatives are the and Open Content Alliance (OCA) projects. While they both aim to make large numbers of books accessible to users online, the two initiatives have several important differences, such as the motives of the parties involved, the transparency of the digitization process, and the way in which copyright issues are handled. This paper provides readers with an overview of the history and current issues surrounding these two consortia projects, and proposes some potential implications that they might have on libraries and their users.

Keywords: Electronic books, Google Books, Open Content Alliance, Digitization, Open Access

Introduction electronic form has gained mainstream acceptance he short history of electronic books can be and many libraries have added electronic books to traced back to 1971, when Project their collections. TGutenberg (www.gutenberg.org) volunteers stared digitizing books before there was even a More recently, as libraries learned that the widely available Internet on which to distribute equipment and staffing needed to perform large them. The first commercial packages of electronic scale digitization are expensive, and as technology books appeared around the same time as the first increased the capacity of servers to store massive CD-ROMs, because it was now possible to scan digital files, a number of collaborative efforts have full text into a computer, and convert it to digital formed to collectively share the expenses and reap files. The Library of the Future was one of the first the benefits that mass digitization offers. Two such to distribute these products. The first edition efforts, the Google Books project and the Open appeared in 1991, a single CD-ROM with about Content Alliance (OCA) have garnered the widest 300 public-domain literary works displayed in public and expert support. This paper provides ASCII text, selling for $695.00. Later editions readers with an overview of the history and increased the number of public-domain works current debate concerning these two initiatives, as included, and reduced the price. Today, CD-ROM well as an analysis of how these projects impact compilations inspired by the Library of the Future on libraries. and containing more than three thousand public domain items can be purchased on eBay for less Google Books than three dollars. In the early 90’s, eBooks moved Google Print, one of many services Google has further towards wider acceptance when the introduced as extensions of its popular search Library Journal published a cover story about engine, was announced in December 2004. The them in September 1992, and Adobe Acrobat first program, collectively called Google Books, has appeared in November 1992 (Mullin, 2002). two parts: Google Print Publisher and Google Since that time, the idea of reading a book in Print Library (Dye, 2006).

FIS2309: Design of Electronic Text, Vol 1(1), 2008. 1 In Google Print Publisher, publishers can sign up the program as being an “electronic card-catalog” for free to submit their books for inclusion in that helps users locate information. Google claims Google's search index and receive half the revenue that the program benefits copyright holders and from contextual ads that Google pairs with search publishers by making books more discoverable, results. As books in Google Print Publisher are and therefore, more likely to be purchased (Balas, searched, a bibliographic record appears, and users 2007). can view the page on which the search term is located, plus up to two pages on either side of the So far, many prominent libraries have keyword. Also displayed with search results are accepted Google’s offer, such as the links to Web sites selling the book, including the Public Library and libraries at the University of publisher itself, along with book vendors like Michigan, Harvard, Stanford and Oxford (Hafner, .com. Although Google scans and stores 2007). However, the resistance from some the full text of each book on its servers, a few libraries, like the Boston Public Library and the pages are purposely excluded, and users cannot Smithsonian Institution, suggests that many print or copy images. Print Publisher has received academic and non-profit institutions are intent on largely positive reactions from publishers, authors, pursuing a vision of the Web as a global repository and users. Penn State Press, a nonprofit, scholarly of knowledge that is free of business interests or publisher, agreed to put a significant portion of its restrictions. Even though Google’s program could catalog into Print Publisher during test stages of make millions of books available to hundreds of the program, and Tony Sanfilippo, marketing and millions of Internet users for the first time, some sales director at Penn State Press, said that he libraries and researchers worry that if any one would recommend it to his nonprofit and company comes to dominate the digital conversion commercial peers (Dye, 2006). of these works, it could exploit that dominance for commercial gain. This concern is heightened by In Google Print Publisher, publishers have the fact that Google requires participating libraries a proactive say as to which of their books are to install a technology that would block scanned, but with Google Print Library, Google commercial search services unaffiliated with delves into the stacks of major libraries at the Google from indexing the books (Hafner, 2007). University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford, Oxford, and the New York Public Another criticism of the Print Library Library and scans the collections regardless of initiative reflects its liberal interpretation and copyright status. Google provides the labor and application of copyright law. In 2005, less than a financial backing in exchange for access to the year after Google announced its intention to scan books, and it creates two digital copies, one going library books, both the Authors Guild and the into Google Print library and the other going to the American Association of Publishers (AAP) filed university that supplied the item. Google has separate lawsuits challenging that Google was committed an estimated $200 million to scan and violating the Copyright Act by reproducing index 15 million books by 2015. copyrighted material for commercial gain (Balas, 2007, Tennant, 2005). While attempting to Print Library has been met with wide- negotiate a compromise with members of the AAP, spread criticism. Publishers have complained that Google voluntarily agreed to stop scanning the project robs them of revenue in the digital copyrighted material. The AAP proposed a book area of their business. Since libraries can solution based on the unique ISBN number that now get digitized copies of print books from has been assigned to every book published since Google, they will no longer buy those same 1967. Using ISBN numbers, the AAP argued, ebooks directly from publishers (Dye, 2006). In Google could determine which works are under response to this criticism, Google has described copyright and contact the publisher and author to

FIS2309: Design of Electronic Text, Vol 1(1), 2008. 2 obtain permission before scanning. When Google fiction to children's books to engineering white rejected the ISBN proposal, talks broke down and papers. These collections, posted on the Internet Google resumed scanning the books in question Archive’s website, even include the contents of T- (Dye, 2006). However, in response to these Space, the digital archives from the University of pressures, Google has begun to allow publishers Toronto and other Canadian universities, which and copyright holders to opt out of participation were built using MIT's DSpace format (Quint, (Dye, 2006; Albanese, 2005). October 3, 2005).

Open Content Alliance The OCA’s governing group, which is The previously mentioned lawsuits, which comprised of representatives of the collaborating challenged the legality of Google's book institutions, has laid out a number of guiding digitization plan, allowed enough of a delay in principles, which include the goal of encouraging Google's scanning process to provide engine rival the greatest possible degree of access to, and reuse Yahoo! an opportunity roll out its own book of collections in the archive while respecting the digitization project (Dye, 2006; Quint, October 3, rights of content owners and contributors. The 2005). In 2005, Yahoo! announced a collaborative OCA also commits to offering collection and item- initiative amongst a number of international level metadata of its hosted collections in a variety cultural, technological, non-profit, and of formats such as the Open Archives Initiative governmental organizations, who all began Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) and working on a new mass digitization project with RSS (www.opencontentalliance.org). The OCA the goal of establishing a flexible, open encourages members to create and share tools infrastructure for bringing large collections of (including finding aids, catalogs, and indexes) that digitized material into the open Web (Quint, will enhance the usability of the materials in the October 3, 2005). This initiative, conceived by archive. Finally, copies of the OCA collections , founder of the , will reside in multiple archives internationally to in collaboration with Yahoo!, was first announced ensure their long-term preservation and in October of 2005. The project, called the Open accessibility to all (www.opencontentalliance.org) Content Alliance (OCA), aims to permanently . archive librarian selected digital content, via a new The content in the OCA archive is made model of collaborative library collection building. accessible through the OCA website and through Brewster Kahle explained the alliance and the the Internet Archive. Additionally, Yahoo! indexes contributions of its initial partners as follows: all content stored by the OCA in its search engine, "The Internet Archive will host the material and to make it findable and accessible to Internet sometimes help with digitization; Yahoo will index users. Meanwhile, the policies on use and access the content and is also funding the digitization of of individual items vary based on the parameters an initial corpus of an American literature set by the contributing institutions. For example, collection that the (UC) the collection of American literature contributed system is selecting. Adobe and HP are helping by the Internet Archive, the University of with the processing software, University of California, and Yahoo! carries no restrictions and Toronto and O'Reilly are adding books, Prelinger may be downloaded and reused for any purpose. Archives and the National Archives of the UK are There is even some interest in the publishing adding movies, and other items” (Albanese, 2005, world about the opportunities for exposure created p. 14). by the OCA’s work. O'Reilly Media, a relatively new commercial publisher, has agreed to make The OCA’s content collections cover a certain content available to the OCA in the hopes wide range of material, including digitized print of making it more discoverable by readers (Quint and multimedia content that will range from 2005).

FIS2309: Design of Electronic Text, Vol 1(1), 2008. 3 The Research Libraries Group (RLG; backing and technological expertise of large http://www.rlg.org), a major library bibliographic corporations. While Google Books is funded and utility, has also joined OCA, contributing its administered by the search engine giant, bibliographic metadata. RLG plans to supply had initially joined the Open Content Alliance bibliographic descriptions to OCA digitizing with an estimated $5 million promise to digitize operations from the more than 48 million titles in approximately 150,000 books (Quint, October 31, its RLG Union Catalog (available for direct 2005). However, Microsoft subsequently withdrew searching at http://www.redlightgreen.com). its participation in the OCA initiative (Ahsmore & Though much smaller in membership than OCLC, Grogg, 2008). the other major library bibliographic utility, RLG's membership of more than 150 research libraries, The second similarity between the two archives, and museums have a breadth of subjects, initiatives is their archival function. Through languages, and content types in their collections digitization, both projects contribute to creating that should assist OCA in handling archives of durable digital copies of materials, which can be older, public domain material (Quint October 31 used as backups of brittle and deteriorating items, 2005). and can be invaluable in cases where fires, floods and other disasters damage or destroy the hard- In contrast with Google Print's secretive copies of books (Albanese, 2006). policy toward its proprietary digitization equipment (Ashmore & Grogg, 2008; Peek, 2007), While both groups essentially perform the the Open Content Alliance has released extensive task of digitizing and making available the full details on its Scribe system, as well as other texts of books, a number of key differences options for participants and users. The OCA also between them have to be noted. These differences learned from Google’s mistakes in the sphere of include their interpretations of copyright, the copyright law (Albanese, 2007). To prevent the extent to which they are willing to share their kinds of legal challenges encountered by Google, methods and technology with the public, their the OCA decided that it would only digitize motives for undertaking the task of digitization, materials that are either in the public domain or and finally, the needs of the end-users that they those where the copyright holders' authorization seek to fulfill. For example, the needs of leisurely has been obtained ((Balas 2007, Albanese 2005). web-surfers looking for suggestions on books to At OCA's inaugural event, Brewster Kahle stated purchase are very different from the needs of that OCA would try to target the 80% of books researchers and historians interested in carefully published between 1923 and 1964 that are out of reading and examining the entire contents of copyright (Tennant, 2005), then expand to include historically significant books. While the functions orphaned books, where the publisher and author of Google Books are sufficient for the needs of the cannot be found, then out-of-print works, and former type of user, the latter user would need finally in-print material (Quint, October 31, 2005). unobstructed access to the full text of a book, a use For the distribution of copyrighted content, the that is not always possible through Google Books. OCA uses Creative Commons licenses (http://www.creativecommons.org), which offer a With regards to copyright, as has already number of licensing models that encourage been mentioned, the OCA currently restricts its personal use, reuse, and flexible access to digital efforts to works in the public domain, such as content (Quint October 3 2005). those works whose copyright period has ended (Ashmore & Grogg, 2008). Google, in contrast, Similarities and Differences scans both copyrighted and public domain works. So what features do both endeavours have in The question of whether Google’s digitization common? Firstly, both benefit from the financial project constitutes fair use and the way it applies

FIS2309: Design of Electronic Text, Vol 1(1), 2008. 4 to digitized material is one of the issues in the find the occurrences of the term in context. This debate over Google’s digitization initiatives results in saved time, and decreased damage to (Balas, 2007). rare and brittle books.

Quint (October 31, 2005) notes that the Additionally, those patrons who do not OCA is much more open about its equipment and have access to a library or to specific rare or sharing the resulting files than Google Print. In historically significant books, can now read these fact, it was the observation that Google does not books, in whole or in part, for free over the want the books to appear in any other search Internet. This accessibility to valuable knowledge engine’s listing but their own that fuelled Brewster is a welcome breach in the cultural and digital Kahle into creating the OCA (Balas, 2007). divide. Society as a whole benefits from the Johnson (2007) notes that libraries that wish to addition of cultural treasures to the public domain, work with Google must agree to a set of protective where more individuals can enjoy and learn from terms, which include a commitment to making the them and utilize them for research that will digitized materials unavailable to other continue to enrich humanity. commercial search services. The Open Content Alliance, by contrast, is making the material Clearly, these two initiatives, and others available to any search service (Hafner, 2007). like them, are transforming the way people access information. In this changing landscape of Where underlying motives are concerned, information access, librarians have to decide Google, which is a commercial, profit-driven whether they will join the digitization movement, enterprise, obviously benefits from including book and to what extent. The awareness of the existence searches in its arsenal of services. So significant is of these electronic copies of valuable books is a the revenue from the search traffic added by this small step towards an increased incorporation of product, that Google in fact pays the libraries to ebooks into the library’s repertoire, and may be all gain access to the books (Hafner, 2007). The the changing some libraries will do for now. Many OCA, in contrast, has no monetary gain. It costs libraries may have already begun small-scale the OCA as much as $30 to scan each book, a cost digitization projects, done in-house, to preserve shared by the group’s members and benefactors brittle or particularly valuable books, or to widen (Tennant, 2005), so there are obvious financial access to important materials for their remote benefits to Google’s offer (Hafner 2007). Libraries users. In such local projects, the products of that sign with the Open Content Alliance are digitization are often not widely shared beyond the obligated to pay the cost of scanning the books but library itself (Ashmore & Grogg, 2008). However, do not need to pay the Internet Archive for storing as many libraries have already realized, since the and sharing them. expense of acquiring and staffing the equipment required for digitization is relatively high, it Implications for Libraries beneficial to become a part of a consortium effort Overall, the existence of initiatives like the OCA where resources and costs can be shared. If the and Google Books benefits all libraries and their decision to join a consortium has been made, the patrons, even when the library does not participate further question seems to be “which one?” in the digitization effort. Because full texts of an increasingly large number of books are available To help in making this decision, librarians for free online, through Google or the Internet need to become educated about the differences and Archive, patrons looking for the mention of a similarities of various digitization projects, as was particular term no longer need to flip through outlined in detail above. Libraries must iron out pages of books or use a printed index to find it. questions about how the copyright of their Instead, they can use the built-in search features to materials will be handled, what restrictions on use

FIS2309: Design of Electronic Text, Vol 1(1), 2008. 5 and users will be in place, and finally, what kind their views and treatment of copyright and in their of benefit (monetary or other) they hope to reap willingness to share the products of digitization from making their books available online. In the with other online enterprises. In the words of Paul words of University of California’s Daniel Duguid, adjunct professor at the School of Greenstein: "There is a huge window of Information at the University of California, opportunity based on the search engines' Berkley: “There are two opposed pathways being competition with each other. However, the race to mapped out. One is shaped by commercial add content also brings with it a challenge. If the concerns, the other by a commitment to openness, academic and library communities don't begin to and which one will win is not clear” (Hafner, define what our basic requirements are for a 2007). massively digitized openly accessible file, we could find ourselves just being taken advantage Works Cited of" (Albanese, 2005, p. 15). Albanese, A. (2005). Yahoo, partners debut scan plan. Library Journal, 130(17), 14-15. Conclusion As Brewster Kahle observes, today’s readers and Albanese, A. (2006). UC joins Google's scan plan. researchers expect that most things will be Library Journal, 131(14), 14-15. available electronically. This expectation is reinforced by the fact that e-journals and Albanese, A. R. (2007). Scan this book! Library newspapers are now widely accessible in Journal, 132(13), 32-35. electronic form. It is Kahle’s opinion that librarians now have the responsibility to take Ashmore, B., & Grogg, J. E. (2008). The race to books into the new technological age by the shelf continues: The open content facilitating their discovery and access online alliance and Amazon.com. Searcher, 16(1), (Albanese, 2007). The work being done by Google 18-23, 55-56. Books and the OCA to digitize books and make them accessible online is thus an exciting sign of Balas, J. L. (2007). By digitizing, are we trading progress in the world of information retrieval. future accessibility for current availability? From the interest these projects have received in Computers in Libraries, 27(3), 30-32. the mass and professional library media, as well as in live and electronic discussions, it appears that Dye, J. (2006). The digital rights issues: Behind most people are embracing digitized collections as book digitization projects. EContent, 29(1), a welcome addition to our information retrieval 32-4, 36-7. options. However, it is important to clarify the distinctions between the two initiatives, and for Hafner, K. (October 3, 2005). In challenge to professionals involved in the fields of publishing Google, Yahoo will scan books. Retrieved and librarianship to understand that the methods July 8, 2008, from and goals of Google Books and OCA are not the http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/03/ same. business/03yahoo.html?_r=1&oref=slogin.

Google, a commercial enterprise, created Johnson, R. K. (2007). In Google’s broad wake: its Books feature to gain more traffic to its search Taking responsibility for shaping the global engine, and therefore, gain more revenue. The digital library. ARL, (250), 1-15. OCA, by contrast, is a non-profit operation focused on the humanistic goal of preserving and Mullin, C. (2002). A funny thing happened on the disseminating important resources as widely as way to the e-book. PNLA Quarterly, 67(1), possible. Additionally, the two consortia differ in 20-27.

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