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UC Joins Google Book Search Project

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

August 9, 2006, 2:48 PM

The University of California said Wednesday that it will join Google in its book-scanning project, giving the Mountain View, Calif. company considerable leverage in attracting other libraries to join the fold. At more than 100 libraries strong, the UC system will be the largest expansion yet. However, the news was also met with criticism from the program's detractors.

Books in the public domain from the library's collection will be scanned and entered into the system. Copyrighted books that have not agreed to be part of the Google Book service would get background on the title, along with a few lines of the text related to the search and where the title could be purchased.

The service has already been the target of at least two lawsuits, one from the Association of American Publishers, and another from the non-profit Author's Guild. Both are attempting to block Google from copying books, and have accused it of copyright infringement.

Lawyers for the AAP called the decision "curious," especially considering the legal problems surrounding Google Book Search. Another group, called the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers told the Associated Press "we are concerned and we aren't happy," saying there was no way to tell how the information would be used.

Regardless of its critics, both UC and Google looked forward and lauded the partnership. "The academic enterprise is fundamentally about discovery," John Oakley, Chair of UC's systemwide Academic Senate said. "We contribute to it immeasurably by unlocking the wealth of information maintained within our libraries and exposing it to the latest that search technologies have to offer."

Other academic libraries participating in the program include Stanford, Michigan and Hartford. Additionally, the New York Public Library and Oxford University are also contributing portions of their collections to the effort. In a statement, University of Michigan Interim Co-University Librarian John Wilkin welcomed UC and defended the project.

"We are thrilled at the idea that another public academic library recognizes the importance of making its great collection discoverable by all who search on the web," he said. "The UC libraries have chosen, like us, to incorporate all works within their library, not just titles in the public domain."

Wilkin also said that it was important that libraries join the effort in order to promote the dissemination of knowledge worldwide. However, some analysts say that Google's intentions aren't entirely pure, so to speak.

The company sees the effort as a way to attract more vistors to its Web site, and in turn, sell more ads. Google's text-based advertising generates the lion's share of revenue for the company, and ads placed aside scanned works could help increase its profit margins.

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By aaronjasonsilver

edited Aug 17, 2006 - 9:28 AM

http://www.google.com/ac...4893245732406&hl=en
Hello, my name is Aaron Jason Silver. I have recently authored a book entitled, “Why Gay Men Do What Do”; “An Inside Look at Gay Culture”. Below is a brief summary about what my book is about and what my concerns are about gay culture of today.

I live in the gay resort along the Lake Michigan shoreline called, Saugatuck Michigan; it is considered one of the top ten largest gay resorts in the country. I live on a small horse farm and raise dogs and write about 5 miles outside of the community. Many of the vacationers, whether gay or straight, are from our closest urban centers such as Chicago Illinois or Detroit Michigan. Living in this area for so long has given me a unique opportunity to observe many different aspects of gay culture and to observe the many fads and trends the culture has gone through, which would also include the rural in which I live and the urban. There are often dramatic differences between the two,

I believe we need healthy charismatic leadership such as Martin Luther King kind of persona that will help inspire and motivate the gay community to move in a more positive direction. We still have a long way to go to be and feel completely assimilated within the dominant culture. To me it seems that the gay community is happy just having fun and partying endlessly every weekend at their favorite watering holes. It is wonderful to want to have fun and play if there is some balance in our lives such as getting involved in some way in helping further our goals of complete assimilation and obtaining equal rights for all under the laws of the land, or even involving oneself in helping those in greater need. I personally will not settle for metaphorical crumbs. I want the whole cookie because we deserve it. However, we need more involvement within our culture otherwise we will continue our endless lifestyle of some very serious behavioral and emotional problems within the community and never address that 800lb gorilla in the living room. I personally can’t ignore the gorilla. I have to at least acknowledge it. Why it is there and what can we do about it?

During the research process for this book which had taken me to around 60 countries and numerous discussions with gay men about their school age experiences, I found a common thread. The commonality was that the vast majority of gay men particularly in the U.S was that school was a terrible and humiliating experience for them. I personally believe that these school age hurts for most gay men are still unhealed wounds that I refer to as “ghost wound.” Ghost wounds are unhealed wounds that follow gay men, or any person for that matter around for their lifetimes affecting their adult lives in a variety of negative and self-defeating ways. I believe and have noticed it seems to prevent many from truly fulfilling lives. These wounds tend to cause them to have a need for frequent sexual encounters, often anonymous, that often lead to sexual addiction. Also gay men have a much higher incidence of alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide and an excessive need to party as you would more likely see in much younger men. Very often gay men tend to be catty, gossipy and petty, the types of behaviors you would more likely expect to see in school age girls. They also tend to prefer situations that are superficial and prefer to the extraneous aspects of life. They tend to want to avoid deep or profound discussions dealing with emotional issues. They often avoid these situations as they arise by giggling or making some silly comment to bring the conversation back into a conversational arena that is more comfortable for them. Intimate discussions are not a comfortable area for many gays. I feel this is a good place to use a saying by Shakespeare that may seem overused by some but in this situation I find it highly appropriate because of its eternal truth, and the saying goes as such; “a life unexamined is a life not worth living”. For many gay men their early years were very painful and perhaps this is the reason why they tend not to be introspective. The examination of ones life can be a painful process but the fruits of the process are well worth all the pain that they may have endured. I need to make it clear that what I have just said is not a blanket statement about all gay men by any means; however, these behaviors are more common amongst gay men than with their straight brothers. None of these issues that I brought up about the pettiness and gossipy behaviors, and the superficial nature of gay culture is not something I just made up. There is not a single gay man that I have ever talked to that hasn’t commented on this phenomenon themselves. However no one has yet put this out there in book form that I know of. I would be remiss that by doing so has caused numerous retaliations against my home and pets.

If you would like a free copy to review please e-mail me a request and I would be delighted to forward your request on to my publisher. They will in turn send you a copy of the book which will take approximately 1 week to be delivered.

---------------------------------------------
A portion of the proceeds from the book sales will be going towards the (non-profit / foundation we are establishing) "CHANGE YOUR LIFE ADVENTURES" (CYLA) which is explained below.

CHANGE YOUR LIFE ADVENTURES: This endeavor is to provide underprivileged teens with the opportunity to experience the wonders of dramatic cultural differences such as African safaris, India and all of the wonderful places that influenced my life so positively. There will be a psychotherapist on board for added guidance and to assist the teenagers with any self-esteem issues, which may hinder their understanding that "what you can dream can be your reality". Our goal is to inspire and encourage these young minds to further their education through scholarship money, computers or any tools, that may be essential to learning in this modern age.
-----------------------------------------------

Most sincerely,

Aaron Jason Silver

Aaron Jason Silver

For more information and how to order this book, go to: www.aaronjasonsilver.com

To add comments about my book go to my blog: www.whygaymendowhattheydo.blogspot.com .
Hello, my name is Aaron Jason Silver. I have recently authored a book entitled, “Why Gay Men Do What Do”; “An Inside Look at Gay Culture”. Below is a brief summary about what my book is about and what my concerns are about gay culture of today.

Score: 0

By patrickarcher72

edited Sep 10, 2006 - 10:27 PM

This so called book, is nothing but a pack of LIES and one a sided "fairy tale".Iam the man from California (Patrick) that saved "Matt ( his real name is Mike) from Aaron's poisoning Mike to near death. Without any doubt, Aaron suffers from "Alzheimer"s disease,because he FORGOT to mention the fact that I have saved Aaron's email dated Tuesday, March 15th, 2005 sent at 10:10pm EST where he fully admits that he suffers from Munchausen's by Proxy Disorder, (someone makes another person sick or hurts them to gain the fame of taking care of them and being a wonderful, loving person.) The author ADMITS that I was the only person who ever figured out his deep sick secret. I knew something was wrong when I would fly to Michigan to visit Mike (Matt in the book) he would be near death when I arrived. Then, within days, he would be FINE. When I would return to California, the next day, he would be deathly sick again. After the third time this happend I knew Aaron was up to no good. The WHOLE TRUTH from Aaron's email is he wanted to collect all of Mike's (Matt's) social security settlement of over 12 months in back payments. Plus, the author admits in the email that he planned on living off Mikes (Matt's) social security income and food stamps as Aaron had no real job, never really has. He lives off of his lover's incomes, past relationships prove that as well. Another fact that the author has fabricated was the fact that he ASKED me to leave his property. Again, this is yet another complete lie, one of many in this rag sheet called a book. Aaron was stealing my pain medications right out of my travel bag and also took food items right out of the cupboards that I BOUGHT for Mike and I while I visited him. When I locked the sliding door between Aaron's upstairs and Mike's lower apartment and put a stop to the stealing of my prescription drugs, he became outraged and called the Allegan Co. Sherrif's Dept. When the police arrived and caught Aaron LYING to their face, that no rent had been paid the police ordered Aaron up to his apartment and that neither Mike or I had to leave. I clearly remember what I said to Aaron at that point in front of the police. " I never wanted to stay anywhere near you Aaron, your a liar and a phoney, Mike are you coming with me, as I'm leaving"? Even though the police said we didn't have to leave, we willingly grabbed what few things we could and both left. We informed the police we would be back in 2 days to pick up the remainder of Mike's belongings. When we arrived with a police escort, suddenly we were told by the author that ALL of MIKE's belongings were taken in a robbery. Oddly only 2 very expensive pieces of Aaron's crap were taken. Notwithstanding the fact that your so called "Author" Dog-napped" Mike's beloved dog, "Gizmo" a beautiful Boston Terrier which only shows what a whack-o Aaron is. I could go on and on about all the fraud he has attempted but you can check that out for yourself at the Allegan County courthouse or with the local county sherrif's office and the Michigan State Police in South Haven, they know your author very well as a kook. I have actually know (Matt) Mike for nearly 20 years and he is NOT what your so-called author writes about. If anyone would like PROOF of anything that I have written, I have the emails saved on my computer and will be happy to forward them to you as well as Homophobic emails from the author's Brother, Steve as well. Thank you for taking the time to read the TRUE "other side" of the story from someone that was there and saw what the actual facts in this matter. Patrick

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By SuziCinGR

edited Sep 27, 2006 - 11:30 PM

Patrick, I'd love to see those emails that you have. You can forward them to me at SuziCinGR@aol.com. Thanks!

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By patrickarcher72

posted Sep 12, 2006 - 8:16 AM

The statements made by Patrick are in fact, TRUE. JIM

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By Galenic

edited Aug 10, 2006 - 8:53 AM

Copyright laws exist to encourage the production of knowledge - a public good produced at the expense of private individuals. Part of that means giving authors a chance to recoup value from their works. Google Books will help authors do that by having book contents come up in searches, so more people will learn about books they want to buy. In terms of books where copyright has expired, (quite possibly the author is dead, the estate is settled, the publication company has disbanded, the distributor has been absorbed into another mega-company, etc) the cause of producing knowledge is better served by freeing up the information from its fixed location inside libraries and archives.

Sure Google is doing this for business reasons. Companies sell pure drinking water for business reasons too. It's still a good thing. Overall, our species is better off, and the information gap between rich and poor countries will close, bringing more smart minds "to the table" of knowledge production.

All good.

And since advancing knowledge is why we fund public institutions, and we have no problem with them using external vendors in their work, generally speaking, why not let them participate in this? Its not like UC has the resources to create a world-searchable text database that would be better than what Google can do. Even trying to do that would be a waste of public funds, when a private-public partnership can solve the problem immediately.

Score: 0

By la_bruin

posted Aug 14, 2006 - 5:31 PM

I don't think anyone's arguing the merit of "sharing information", "growing humanity", "producing knowledge", and everything else you've said.

And I don't have a problem with Google partipating in this as long as everyone - including other for-profit search engines - has an equal opportunity to the same intellectual property (the scans) being produced by my tax dollars. While I imagine that a university sponsored effort would be too great an undertaking, I have no doubt that a greater playing field would be laid if this level of "partnership" was published and encouraged between multiple corporate entities looking to pursue the same goals.

And not just Google.

This is an "ends justifies the means" mentality. It's certainly not the open thinking typically characterized by universities but rather a direct path to tax-funded unfair practices in a competitive arena. Let's be clear here: Google will have exclusive rights to the combined intellectual assets of several major university systems without payment or compensation, and without obligation to share state-funded assets with any other entity.

Doesn't anyone else find this something to be concerned about? This is a decision that just screams for a reversal. Any form of exclusivity the UC is providing to Google is in fact a form of state-sanctioned high-tech crony-ism.

I would suggest that if Google is looking to 'carry the burden' of the scan databases and indices while reaping the benefit of such knowledge, that they provide open access to the same content with the same speed & result set of the UC IP to other companies like Yahoo using web services calls and permit the republishing of the results and scans through 3rd party portals. This would be an interim step to making the same UC published data available to any other organization interested in the IP.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 10, 2006 - 9:37 AM

Very well said. Great post.

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By la_bruin

posted Aug 10, 2006 - 4:26 AM

This is an interesting project and is a long time coming...(http://books.google.com/googleprint/library.html) however I have questions about the UC, a state-funded institution, contributing both its time, knowledge & aggregate resources, to an individual corporate entity.

All snide remarks aside, would anyone question this relationship if Microsoft was the beneficiary of the UC's agreement? Google's got a lot to gain from this - an effort that apparently California's taxpayers has and are funding.

Traditionally, assets like the IP and labor being contributed here by a state funded institution are collectively integrated into a shared source in an open standards fashion so that anyone can take advantage of them using things like open standards protocols. No one private entity owns the information being aggregated this way and everyone - Yahoo, Ask, and yes, even Microsoft - could make use of the fruits of the state, while also maintaining competition - not just Google. Google would be more than welcome to SPONSOR an effort again maintained and operated by the UC but certainly not own & control the environment upon which the data resides upon.

The last paragraph says it all:
"The company sees the effort as a way to attract more vistors to its Web site, and in turn, sell more ads. Google's text-based advertising generates the lion's share of revenue for the company, and ads placed aside scanned works could help increase its profit margins."

If the UC were to state that it's contributions could be formally extracted and/or repurposed in the same way that Google is - even on Google's own servers using remote queries - I think that would nix my concern.

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By spongy-poo

posted Aug 9, 2006 - 3:20 PM

"Copyrighted books that have not agreed to be part of the Google Book service would get background on the title, along with a few lines of the text related to the search and where the title could be purchased."

So, they are being sued for cataloging the books and giving information about where the copyrighted ones can be purchased?

"We don't know how the information will be used." Well, as long as it's not going to be in AOL's hands, it should be okay. Google is not taking ownership of anything and they seem fully willing to provide protection for copyrighted works.

So long as this doesn't turn into something like what some academic publishers do ($25.00 and up for one lousy journal article), I don't see the problem.