Over the last few days I have been driving along the coast of western America from San Francisco to Seattle. I have made it about 70 percent of the way and I am writing this article from a ski lodge in Lake Diamond. Along the way I have been listening to the local radio stations. In many places the only radio station that was available was National Public Radio (NPR). NPR is a commercial-free news and talk radio station. Once of the things I found interesting about this station was the lack of music and the amount of spoken word ranging from radio theatre to current affairs journalism.
One of the stories covered over the last few days was on the Google Books Library Project. I originally heard about this project several years ago when Google was planning to digitally scan books from library collections and over time integrate this content into Google search. This project appears to have been extended to books that are no longer in print. As per the Google ethos of 'Don't be evil,' as part of this project a computer that has free access to this collection will be provided to every public library project. Until listening to the librarians that were interviewed in this radio piece, I have never really thought too much about the impact of one organisation controlling access to information. The reason for public libraries being established in the first place was to provide a collection of useful material for common use. In other words information is not controlled by a single entity. What is your opinion on one entity possibly controlling access to out of print information?
- Peter Ward