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One College Librarian Worries About 'Atomizing' Books ...

Two librarians present opposing views: Michael Gorman and John P. Wilkin

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One College Librarian Worries About 'Atomizing' Books ...

Michael Gorman, president-elect of the American Library Association, has become a vocal critic of Google's library project. Mr. Gorman, who is dean of library services at California State University at Fresno, argues that the growing popularity of Google's search engine among scholars could harm research because even after Google expands its collection with book content, the search engine will have far less to offer than many traditional libraries. And because Google will make available only short excerpts of copyrighted works, he says the tool will be of limited value.

Q. What's wrong with Google's scanning millions of library books and adding them to its search engine?

A. If you're going to spend millions of dollars and you're interested in getting research materials to scholars, wouldn't it be better for Google to spend money improving their own business? ... Wouldn't it be better for them to work on, quote, cataloging the Web, so you can get the kind of results you get from a library catalog?

The second big objection to me is that they say they're digitizing books, but they're really not, they're atomizing them. In other words, they're reducing books to a collection of paragraphs and sentences which, taken out of context, have virtually no meaning. They may contain some data, but it's of very marginal utility. I mean, my view is that a scholarly book is an exposition. It begins at the beginning and ends at the end. It cumulatively adds to your knowledge of a topic and presents an argument.

Q. But can't these scanned volumes help readers find books in the physical library?

A. A much more efficient way to find books on topics is to use any of the huge union catalogs that exist. I mean, you can go to the Library of Congress catalog ... and you can search using their subject headings and find an enormous amount of literature on any topic you want and then borrow it. ... There's a huge amount of noise in Google, and library catalogs are more or less free from noise.

Q. Is there a perception by some Google users that they are getting a more comprehensive answer than they are?

A. That's exactly right, and that's the common delusion of undergraduates everywhere. They think that in using Google, they're getting relevant materials and a sufficiency of relevant materials to write papers and to do research -- and it's simply not true.

Q. Some of your colleagues argue that libraries should become more user-friendly, and that they should change with the times.

A. Libraries are user-friendly, and we have changed. I've been in libraries for 40 years, and they've changed unutterably. Go to any campus, and the library is likely to be the most technologically advanced unit on campus. ... That does not mean that everything can be dumbed down to some kind of hip-hop or bells-and-whistles kind of stuff. It just can't be. If you want to know about the dynasties of China, you're going to have to read a book. In fact, you're going to have to read several books.

Q. Are you concerned that as more books are scanned, fewer libraries will keep hard copies?

A. That is a real concern because maintaining large collections of books is an expensive endeavor. ... There's no money to be made out of supplying scholars with old scholarly texts. And, you know, if you build a gigantic electronic archive, sooner or later the governor of your state or the president of your university or somebody in Congress -- some jackass -- is going to say, Look, only three people have used this section of this digital database in the last year, why are we spending money keeping it?

Q. Why do you think there is so much interest in the Google project?

A. Beats me. Librarians are as faddish as the next people. We've had these fads before, by the way. There was a point at which audiovisual materials were the thing. There was another point when we were going to carry the Library of Congress around in a briefcase because it would be on ultrafiche and you could just take out any text you want and read it on your special reader on your way home on the bus. You know, these things come and go, and usually the technology finds its level and finds its appropriate role. All I'm saying is for data, for short texts, even for articles, I think electronic communication is probably the future. But I don't see any reason to abandon a technology like the book, which has served us so well.

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... While Another Cheers the Project On

The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor was the first college to join Google's library project. Michigan officials began discussions with Google about two years ago, and the company quietly began scanning books last July. Under the terms of the arrangement, the university gets a digital copy of every book scanned, and can use those copies to offer services online -- as long as it doesn't sell the copies to a competitor of Google. John P. Wilkin, an associate university librarian, says Michigan's library is still deciding what it will do with the digital copies of its 7.8 million books.

Q. How do you respond to the general fear that the Google collection could replace the library?

A. The library is more than a collection of books. It's about connecting users with information. ... We have a very, very significant collections budget here at Michigan, and we spend roughly 25 percent of that on electronic resources. That's millions of dollars, and we have more than just about any institution in terms of electronic resources available to our users -- and they use them. And yet, at the same time, people are coming to the library in greater numbers. Our gate count goes up, our circulation stays high, and we think this is a very interesting paradox. The library as place is a growing concept, and people come together to use resources with other people even though they can access the resources remotely in many cases. We think a lot of that is about service and the work that we do with our community.

Q. How many books have you scanned so far?

A. We're not supposed to talk about numbers. ... At this point, the scale has been larger than anything that we've done before.

Q. How soon do you think the university will make the scanned books available?

A. We're at least a year off. We've got a number of irons in the fire that we need to attend to, and so for the near term we need to curate that material carefully. We need to get it into secure storage and make sure that we can begin that process of sustaining the material in perpetuity. But Google will be putting the materials online, too, so that removes some pressure from us. We can, like the rest of the world, rely on Google's search services.

Q. Do you plan to work with other universities to build a joint digital collection?

A. We've had a number of discussions, and in some ways very openly, with natural partners. For example, the University of Michigan is part of a group called the CIC, the Committee on Institutional Cooperation -- it's the Big Ten and the University of Chicago -- and we just had some discussions about trying to find a point of intersection there the other day. So some of this is quite natural.

Q. Are you confident that the digital formats you are getting from Google will be good enough to last?

A. I think that's a good way of characterizing it. They are, in fact, good enough to last. I know there's a lot of worry and skepticism in this space, but there's just a lot that we've done over more than a decade in the library community on issues around adequate means of capture and reliable file formats. ... So we have a lot of confidence in the methods and the formats that we use, and we were able to inject our experience into the discussions with Google.

Q. Are you concerned at all that the scanning process could damage the books?

A. I can say with absolute honesty that [Google's scanners] handle the materials more gently than use of the materials by readers. The book doesn't need to be opened as much, and that's a key piece. Our books are there to be used, and this will be gentler to the materials than normal use of the materials. So we feel good about that.

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Volume 51, Issue 39, Page A25