Despite my professional respect for Thomas Mann, he drew some unfair and unfortunate conclusions in his article "Google Print vs. Onsite Collections" in August's American Libraries. He fails to disclose some significant assumptions upon which his argument is based and he over-generalizes his conclusions. The end result is yet another article that characterizes Google as the enemy of libraries without analyzing the potential benefits of digital resources in libraries.
When he says digitizing books "would entail the unintended consequence of destroying the systematic subject access to them" he is suggesting that digitized books can not be added to the library catalog, which is untrue. Many research libraries have thousands of catalog records which provide controlled subject access as well as classified arrangement for e-books from online publishers.
When he argues for the value of "…recognition versus prior specification…" he fails to mention that the limitations on viewing all pages of a book from the Google Print project are due to copyright limitations, not technical limitations. Besides Google Print, there are a number of e-book collections that do allow users to view the entire full-text of the book, and thus enabling the "recognition" function that Mr. Mann values so much.
He paints a world where Google is at odds with traditional libraries instead of exploring the benefits that digital library technologies can provide patrons. Digital collections remove time and space as barriers to collections. Ironically, the same issue of American Libraries points out that "public libraries struggle to meet internet demand." Forward-looking librarians will see this as an opportunity to serve our patrons by working to provide improved online content. Finally, his criticisms of Google illustrates that libraries should be doing more to promote Open Access publishing, in which access to high quality publications is freely available.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Thomas Mann's misleading article on Google Print
In the August 2005 issue of American Libraries, pages 45-46, Thomas Mann criticizes Google Print in an article titled "Google Print vs. Onsite Collections," saying that it is no replacement for a classed catalog, serendipitous browsing, and the ability to "recognize" information by browsing book stacks. I have a lot of respect for Mann, I've read his book Library Research Models two or three times. But he really misses the mark in this article. I sent the following brief letter to the AL editors.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Your comments have a lot of merit, but what I think you're missing is that Mr Mann is rebutting a presentation given by Deanna Marcum, "The future of cataloging," given at the Ebsco leadership seminar on January 16, 2005. You can google it to get it. I think you will find his comments make more sense in that context.
Thanks for the tip. This isn't mentioned in the American Libraries article and I think the lack of that context is significant.
Post a Comment