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Digital Libraries
Google Book Search: The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly
1/1/2008
How does UC deliver 3,000 books a day to Google? It isn't by being overly selective. And it doesn't involve rare materials that aren't part of the circulating collection. "All of the libraries are talking about that, in the sense of what might be the most interesting materials to scan," says Chandler. "But I'll be very frank: There's a real balance point between volume and selection, especially when looking at these numbers. UC is trying to meet the needs of the contract it's signed."
Ultimately, the library has to perform bulk selection, "which means choosing both in-copyright and out-of-copyright," she says. "So without having to worry about publication dates and such, you're literally able to clear shelves."
KIRTAS TECHNOLOGIES' APT BookScan 2400 Gold robotic scanner is capable of digitizing 1,344 books a week.
The issue of copyright was something Google stumbled over early in its founding of Book Search (previously dubbed the Google Print Library Project, even though users apparently weren't allowed to print anything). After a brief hiatus, the site was modified to reflect the more copyright-holder-friendly practices of competitive offerings from Microsoft and the Open Content Alliance. It comes down to this: Full text is available for out-of-copyright materials and for copyrighted books from publishers who allow it; limited content is displayed for newer books. Lawsuits are still pending.
As Chandler describes it, a staff member removes the entire shelf of books, places the books on a book truck, then moves on to the next shelf, "until, essentially, the quota for a day is reached. Then they're checked out." Although Google doesn't have a UC library card per se, the books heading off for scanning go through the same checkout process as any volume leaving the facility. Their bar codes are read and a manifest is compiled, "to be able to account for a day's shipment," she explains. "It's very important not to lose a book anywhere along the way."
GOOGLE'S SCAN OF this page from an 1888 edition of Plato's The Trial and Death of Socrates suggests that humans-and human error-are a large part of the Book Search digitization process.
Behind Closed Doors…
Once the volumes move through the checkout, they're purported to be loaded onto another truck-one which takes the volumes to an undisclosed location where the Google scanning facility is set up. At that point, operations become a black box. (It's possible that the scanning occurs at the regional UC facilities themselves, but UC staffers aren't talking. Citing proprietary concerns, Chandler declines to answer questions about scanning operations, and Dan Clancy-engineering director for Google, in charge of leading the Book Search team-is just as cagey.)
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