July 10, 2008
Librarians Accuse Google of Using and Discarding Them
Is Google casting aside the library community? That’s the recent conclusion of some librarians. The giant technology company once courted librarians to back its controversial project that digitizes books from academic libraries and makes all or parts of the texts available online. Now it seems Google no longer needs them, the librarians say.
Steven M. Cohen, a senior librarian at Law Library Management Inc., notes on his blog that Google last updated its “Librarian Central” blog a year ago. And he and Roy Tennant, a librarian with the Online Computer Library Center, say that, atypically, Google wasn’t present at the American Library Association’s annual conference last month, even though it was held in Anaheim, Calif. “only one short plane ride away from the Googleplex” also in California, writes Mr. Tennant.
“So, Google will continue to use librarians, scan their books, profit from it, and then leave us in the information dust to rot like an old microfilm machine,” writes Mr. Cohen. “It’s sad really. But then again, we fell for it.”
Sara Houghton-Jan, digital futures manager for the San Jose Public Library, writes that Google has left librarians feeling like “chumps.”
Bill Drew, a librarian at Tompkins Courtland Community College in New York, reports today that he received a response to the librarians’ complaints on his blog—albeit not from Google. Pam Saenger, who helped run Librarian Central, says she is no longer employed by Google. “I think they’re planning on sending out a librarian newsletter imminently,” she writes of the company.—Andrea L. Foster
Posted on Thursday July 10, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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As a professional librarian I certainly understand Mr. Cohen’s perspective. However, his quote is, I would suggest, rather presumptuous. The phrase “…scan THEIR books…” – since when did the books in libraries become owned by librarians? They are not OUR books. If anything they belong to the authors. Commercial companies such as Google are in the business of making money, not providing social services. To the extent we librarians provide some useful and valuable expertise and ability companies will “use us”. To the extent we don’t they won’t. Why is that even an issue? That’s capitalism!
— GB Jul 10, 10:26 AM #
I suppose then, GB, that you won’t mind if I drive my fleet of moving vans up to the library that you work at and take them all away. After all, they aren’t “yours”.
Oh, yeah – but the institution that you work for paid for them. As did the institutions that are working with / being exploited by Google (depending on your PoV).
The point being, Google didn’t have to pay any money for those materials. Obviously they are spending money to digitize them. But if they didn’t see a payoff for doing so, do you really think they would be doing it?
Point being, whose interest are we serving? It sounds more and more like we are serving Google’s interests, which appear to be very much different from our own and not as compatible as we thought / they claimed.
— Scott Jul 10, 12:29 PM #
It is sad to see such Gormanism from some members of the library blogging community, thanks to whom we now have yet another piece in the news that portrays librarians as anti-Google. Hopefully, the vast majority of librarians who no doubt disagree with the sentiment expressed in this article will speak up. Google remains indispensable, valued, and extraordinarily friendly to academic libraries and what we do.
— Marc Gartler Jul 10, 12:30 PM #
How is making electronically available nearly a million books to everyone on the planet “taking advantage” of anyone? It seems Google has given these librarians resources unprecedented in the history of the world. This is true intellectual common-wealth in action. Three cheers for Google.
— John Jul 10, 12:36 PM #
Marc:
I’m not anti-Google. I use it all the time. It’s the best engine out there and I love it. I use Google for news, RSS reading, and the Google Book search.
That has nothing to do with the facts that I pointed out in my blog post. It’s not an anti-Google statement at all. It’s an anti-relationship/anti-partner issue that BigCo’s like Google don’t care about.
And Gormanism? Really?
— Steven M. Cohen Jul 10, 12:37 PM #
About a year and a half ago, librarian Meredith Farkas blogged about the concept of charitable reading – the idea that one should read what discussions on the internet with the belief that the author meant the best possible thing that could be interpreted from their writing, not the worst.
I bring this up because I believe GB has deliberately misunderstood Steven Cohen’s post. Nowhere did Mr. Cohen say, “Librarians own books.” What he wrote was, “So, Google will continue to use librarians, scan their books…” While one could interpret this as suggesting that librarians own books, a more charitable reader might believe Mr. Cohen meant “their libraries’ books.”
Furthermore, I think GB’s suggestion that “They are not OUR books. If anything they belong to the authors.” is even farther off the mark. Libraries own books. They purchase them or receive them as donations. I believe it to be utterly reasonable for librarians to feel a sense of ownership for their libraries’ collections – since librarians are, generally, responsible for the purchase, subscription, or disposal of items in their libraries’ collection.
In any case, I think the question of whether or not librarians “own” books is irrelevant to the point of the article.
GB argues that for librarians to be used and abandoned by Google is simply a matter of Capitalism. I disagree. Yes, Google is certainly in the business of making money, as is any “commercial company.” I don’t really think anyone was under the illusion that they were otherwise. However, I think the heart of the matter is the fact that Google led us to have certain expectations about the relationship between Google and librarians, and thus far, they appear to have failed to fulfill these expectations.
In the first edition of the Google Librarian Central newsletter, Jodi Healy talks about Google’s first visit to the ALA conference in 2005. She intimates that there were several useful discussions to occur at that conference, and says, “In an effort to keep those conversations going, we’re launching this newsletter. Consider it a first step toward what we hope will be a long and mutually beneficial relationship.”
Perhaps Google has a different definition of “long and mutually beneficial,” but one and a half years of posting – followed by a year of silence – does not strike to me as a “long” relationship. As one person, I cannot speak as to whether it was a beneficial relationship – I did find the newsletters and blog posts occasionally useful.
Given the lack of communication from Google, several people, including myself, have drawn the conclusion that Google no longer finds the relationship beneficial.
If Google is planning to send out another newsletter imminently, as former employee Pamela Saenger indicates, I will attempt my best to read it with a charitable eye. Until then, silence speaks louder than words.
— Laura Harris Jul 10, 12:42 PM #
You librarians actually think you’re important? We will chew you up and spit you out like a Harvey Kuehn wad of chaw.
— Googleman Jul 10, 12:52 PM #
Enlighten me, Scott: In what way are Google’s interests “very much different” from Libraries? Both want a satisfied user, no?
Until someone can explain to me how what Google has done hurts the USER rather than merely hurting the delicate feelings of a few librarians (who aren’t even involved in the project), then this is much ado about nothing (my apologies for copying that line from a book owned by lots of libraries).
In addition, this whole thing seems to have been set off by Google apparently snubbing ALA Annual. Guess what? A lot of us do — there just isn’t much there of value.
— michael Jul 10, 01:02 PM #
Librarians have been fans of Google from the beginning. We use it for work purposes and in our personal lives. But we aren’t limited by it – we can get what we want elsewhere and frequently do. If you read the full posts by Mr. Cohen and our other worthy colleagues it seems apparent that the points they are making is that Google, which we have generally come to respect for it’s products and corporate ethics, has taken advantage of the profession by catering to us when it was necessary, and then “not calling us back” after the deed was done. That was the main point. Is that what corporations do? Sure, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating and we hold Google to its own stated standard of idealism. Many thanks to Mr Cohen, Mr. Tennant, Mr. Drew, and Ms. Houghton-Jan for making these observations.
— Chadwick Seagraves Jul 10, 01:05 PM #
I disagree with Steven Cohen’s assertion that “we” fell for it. To be precise, here’s who fell for it: http://books.google.com/googlebooks/partners.html
It appears that few or none of the US institutions listed have faculty librarians, which undoubtedly contributed to the poor institutional decisions to “partner” with Google.
— Al Jul 10, 01:14 PM #
“It appears that few or none of the US institutions listed have faculty librarians, which undoubtedly contributed to the poor institutional decisions to “partner” with Google.”
This implies that only faculty can make sound, service-based business decisions on behalf of America’s libraries, which is not only insulting to those in our profession who do not have faculty status but are professionals and academics working hard for their institutions, but is also, frankly, laughable.
— Jenica Rogers-Urbanek Jul 10, 01:34 PM #
Not all librarians feel like they’ve been used. See http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/index.php/2008/07/10/love-for-sale/
Al, do you honestly believe that the libraries went into these deals without the full support of university counsel and the university administration? PLEASE! Your ignorant swipe at librarians really does not deserve a rebuttal.
— Meredith Farkas Jul 10, 01:52 PM #
Wouldn’t it be nice if the “charitable reading” sentiment that Meredith Farkas mentioned could be extended a little further into the culture at large? Sadly, the uncharitable, not to say chippy, attitudes exhibited by some librarians because a corporate blog has been inactive seem to undercut the promise of that.
Yes, Google, like any other business, BigCo or SmallCo, is in the “business of making money”. But, as everyone (but for the dwindling remnant of Marxist — sorry, “anti-capitalist” — diehards) knows, they make that money precisely by providing social services/products. Which, as has been noticed, most of us are quite happy with. So here’s an off-topic but interestingly “transgressive” thought for you — what if libraries could do a better job of providing social services if they too were in the business of making, as opposed to simply spending, money?
— LC Jul 10, 02:30 PM #
Libraries and Google still embody an element no other group on Earth can capture other than family.
TRUST
Safe for you firewall -both doing the best they can for you.
Eventualy the Librarians will become Googalarians
— JRC Jul 10, 02:57 PM #
… and some of us just really missed the light up Google ice cubes they handed out at ALA one year …
— Martin Jul 10, 04:28 PM #
I find it difficult to see how the digitization and resulting broader ease of access to printed books can be anything but a broad social good. Google has a way (many ways, I’m sure) to make money out of it. Of course they do — they’re not a foundation or a governmental organization, they’re a “BigCo,” in Stephen Cohen’s phrasing. So what? Google’s turning a profit on my reading a digitized full-text (and therefore, out-of-copyright) book I could not otherwise have instant access to doesn’t harm anyone I can think of.
Some libraries (such as my own — though I make no pretense of speaking for the University of Michigan library) are actively determining the copyright status of books published between 1923 and 1963 and opening full-text access to those determined to be out of copyright. Those in the public domain are available through our own (i.e., not Google’s) web site, with no advertising or profit center for the BigCo. See http://scholarlypublishing.org/jpwilkin/archives/13 for a fuller description of the Michigan project.
— Ken Varnum Jul 10, 04:50 PM #
Meredith: My comments were not a swipe at librarians. They are a swipe at research libraries which have Provosts or Vice Provosts for lead administrators, and non-faculty librarians on the staff. It’s ignorance to ignore that distinction.
— Al Jul 10, 04:58 PM #
I am having a hard time figuring out the issue of concern? What is Google suppose to be doing with librarians that they are not doing?
— Kyle David Jul 10, 04:59 PM #
This doesn’t surprise me. This fits a pattern of Google’s method of management, which is based on the enthusiasm of specific employees and teams. When a group of employees is excited about a project, it moves forward quickly. When they lose interest, it is dropped just as quickly. I formerly worked for an organization that had a very similar experience. Google approached us, very excited about adding some of our data to their search tools. It went swimmingly for a few months, and then it was suddenly, quietly dropped on their end. Google makes wonderful products, but librarians (and the rest of us) should be very hesitant about trusting them with longterm, “boring” projects like archiving.
— Mike Jul 10, 05:14 PM #
I promise I am not trying to be obtuse, I really do not understand what it is that Google did? Was there a contract they had with ALA they did not honor? Were they working with librarians on scanning and did not do what they were suppose to be doing? I am just trying to understand what they did wrong. Thanks
— Kyle David Jul 10, 05:43 PM #
I don’t hear anyone mentioning that Microsoft wasn’t there either – and they had a presence at both annual and midwinter for a few years. Why no angst over their sudden disappearance from the conference, not to mention that MSFT completely pulled the rug out from under their library partners when they ditched the book digitization project.
Bottom line folks – these are corporate entities we are partnering with and they are beholden to their shareholders – not librarians. So I don’t know why Google’s not-so-sudden lack of interest in librarians is such a big deal.
Are we now shocked that Google was faking its supposed interest in being our friend. Was their presence at ALA or their “librarian-friendly web center” anything more than a hollow effort at outreach – or to win us over with the cheap toys and t-shirts they gave away at their conference booth – and for which librarians sadly lined up and played mindless games. If you’re a librarian and you couldn’t detect that Google’s “librarian video” campaign was an outright effort to buy and sell our integrity, you deserve what you got – if you now feel bought and sold. This all seems old hat. I tried to tell you this two years ago. See:
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6365198.html?q=infomercial
— stevenb Jul 10, 08:53 PM #
Like many others here, I had noted Google’s recent lower level of activity with their library communication channels, going back several months, though it seems that with ALA over the interest was suddenly heightened and has now spread through blogs and email lists alike. I suppose I am as curious as anyone else as to the reason behind Google’s decreased communication of late. Some have suggested that Google had a contract or at least a gentleman’s agreement with the library industry as a whole, even that the libraries that partnered with Google have an obligation, along with Google, to explain themselves to all the rest of the libraries out there. I wonder why the Google partners would have an “obligation” to the “rest of us”, and what exactly that obligation would be? To explain the communication strategy of a company that they have partnered with? Did anyone demand for DRA or their library partners to explain themselves when they inexplicably killed TAOS after “suckering” all those trusting pilot libraries with their promise of a brave new world for the library ILS? What ever happened to Corinthian? How about any other number of vendors who were full of promises on some product or another and all at once decided to call it a day? Microsoft for its part summarily executed Live Book Search with barely a whimper, as stevenb notes.
As far as I can see all of the services that Google offers and has offered to libraries are still up and fully functional, including the release in the last couple of months of an API into Google Book Search that could not possibly have been meant for too anyone else but libraries, and sponsorship of a number of open source projects directly or indirectly related to libraries under the umbrella of Google Summer of Code, not to mention millions of books digitized (and counting) freely available online, as well as archived with the library partners. And for what they have produced for libraries, Google has never received a cent of library money. So I wonder at the purpose of demanding anything, much less a formal explanation, from our good colleagues? There are at least half a dozen reasons why Google may have backed off in recent months, and not all of them begin with a staff meeting at Google that starts “Let’s really stick it to these librarian ho-hums and dump them in the cold now that we’ve bled them dry.”
There is something that smacks of paradox in the collective response that has come in the wake of the initial observations (that Google Librarian Central had not been updated in a while, that Google was not at ALA). On the one hand there is a group identification with the partner libraries so strong that we all felt Google’s contract, their committed relationship, was with the entire library industry, and by not showing up to the ball, they have broken faith with us all. On the other hand there is a remarkable condescension to the partners, that they made an extraordinarily naive and ill-informed decision and should have known they would get sucker-punched (a sentiment that, by the way, goes all the way back to when the project was first announced, and those who said so at the time are getting a second wind today). All this, despite the fact that Google’s contracts, as far as we know, hold good with the partners, digitization continues, and the Book Search blog remains as active as ever…Google Book Search doesn’t look like its going anywhere. I would note that assumptions about motivations and intentions aside, this is now, and always has been, a fair deal on both sides. Google received a huge amount of information to add to its index and increase the value of its properties. The libraries were launched hundreds of years forward (by some estimates) in their digitization and R&D efforts in only a few years. And they paid nothing for it, except in the court of opinion of their own colleagues. I have never met a member of the general public who felt the Google Library project was anything short of stupendous. How long has it been since libraries were so elevated in the popular consciousness?
As for whether or not librarians clumsily fell for bright shiny things at Annual conferences, there is little to say. Google staff themselves were caught off guard by how much swag librarians could consume in very little time, more than other conventions they had attended. The first ALA they were at, they ran out of knick knacks Saturday morning. At their biggest conference presence (the much noted t-shirts and hats, etc), they ran out by Sunday afternoon. It is safe to say, I think, that in visiting our culture, they were doing their best to fit in with what we were telling them was important to us when we gather and commiserate—lots of swag. As for silly games, I suppose we easily forget the ostentatious wheel of fortune at the DEMCO booth, and the half hour wait to give it a spin. I hesitate to say it too many times, but Google never sold us anything. They came to our party, got into the swing of things, and joined us in having some fun. They also threw some of the best parties ALA has ever seen.
My take: we’re even. Well met, Google, and well played.
— Maurice York Jul 11, 12:24 AM #
Interesting discussion.
The central question here is trust, without a doubt. Libraries are trusting Google to digitize books (and hence, create a new Google-owned asset – the Google index of such content). In the process of creating that Google-owned index, it is making digital copies of content it doesn’t own, exploiting the fair use law.
As long as Google is friendly and open, and as long as our Justice Department doesn’t forget who owns the content (the ones who hold the copyrights), then Google’s Library project makes sense to everyone.
But in a world where the recent FISA bill has put into question the core rights of Americans regarding information privacy, shouldn’t we get a little nervous about the possibilty that Google will one day break trust with the book industry? And that our government (and we, the people) will let them do it?
The problem is, the deal is already done now. It will be a lot harder to stop this locomotive if it breaks trust now than to have done so by designing the compact between Google and the GL partners in the beginning.
And those GL partners may one day find that a less beneficient, more powerful and megalomaniacal Google will have used them as patsies to undermine the ownership rights of copyright holders.
With this done, Google will have shifted the control of an industry in their direction — one that may or may not serve the public good as much as we feel Google does today.
That is what makes me nervous. Not what Google has done, but what they might choose to do if trust disappears.
— Bill Jul 11, 06:49 AM #
Lost in this discussion is any reference to the fact that copyrighted materials have also found themselves enshrined in Googles’ database. Unless someone can demonstrate that this is not so, I would have to think that copyright owners, thus violated, have more to complain about than do librarians.
Jim Black
— James W. Black Jul 11, 09:11 AM #
All of this misses the point that we are a dying profession. And we’re dying NOT because of Google, but because we insist on retaining the paradigms (yes, I hate that word, too) of the past. I’m 61. Get off your duffs, librarians. What we know about how reliable information is produced is being lost. This generation chooses what it WANTS to know, not what it NEEDS to know. We’re not chumps.We’re anachronisms. And it’s our fault. Go Google. Give them what they want. Meanwhile, we discuss OPAC’s and metadata. ACK!
— linda bartnik Jul 11, 09:39 AM #
Yes, I also noticed that Google was not present at ALA this year. I thought it was strange
— Madlibrarian Jul 11, 09:41 AM #
Exploitation is the word to remember in capitalistic society; their only goal is to make money—it doesn’t matter how or whose feelings are hurt. I am surprised Americans don’t know about it. Welcome to the world of capitalism!!!
— Sam Jul 11, 09:52 AM #
We didn’t go into the Google project so we could schmooze with them at ALA or be flattered with attention from their blogs. It was so that users everywhere could have full access to a big chunk of our collection, with the promise of further access as copyrights expire. Hard to see the down side of that.
While it’s not quite fair to say we haven’t paid anything — we’ve paid a lot in staff time and logistics — we’re getting ROI not only in terms of the immediate public access, but also the long-term benefit of having a copy of all of the content, so we can continue to provide access even if Google pulls the plug tomorrow.
— Peter Gorman Jul 11, 10:13 AM #
Forgive me, for I feel the need to google myself. I love my profession and I am proud to be a googlebrian! I will never regret I went to google school and earned my Master’s degree in google Science! Let us show that we can google! Why study when you can surf? Why do research when you can google at the local googlebrary? Oh, research & libraries! Such dull boring words! Just hearing them is like a kick in the opac! I’m a free spirit set free to google! And since I’m so young at heart, don’t call me a googlebrarian, I will be called a gigglebrarian!
YAHOO!! :-)
— ech Jul 11, 10:26 AM #
yes, google is doing such a public service; rather than a book it will be giving up a book with advertising; great product and retooling of the book; just what I wanted more advertising in the one place left on earth I could be alone, ponder, reflect and ruminate; good work gigglebarians and university “leaders.”
— vinnie Jul 11, 11:18 AM #
Kyle B.,
Every year librarians have a huge annual conference called ALA. The past few years Google has attended this conference and ALA rolled out the red carpet. Google reps made lots of attempts to say how important librarians were. What this blog entry is about is the fact that at the recent ALA convention, Google did not send any reps or put up a booth. Some people are upset, others are not. For some this no-show was a surprise, while others say it was expected. This is relevant to a broader cultural debate about what role Google does and should play as an information provider vs. what role libraries play.
— April Y. Jul 11, 11:52 AM #
With this valuable library book digitizing, Google is finally fulfilling the dream of OCLC’s late founder, Fred Kilgour, to have electronic searchability (and findability) for keywords in the world’s collection of nonfiction book titles. In order to gain quality, universal, & free Internet access for everyone in the reading community who’s interested, some major company, and it’s Google in this case, would have to do an efficient job of scanning and indexing them all. The alternative is not to have this access, because putting the government on the case would be slow and inefficent – if it got done at all. You go, Google!
— NL Jul 11, 11:57 AM #
Just this afternoon I got an e-mail message announcing the availability of a new issue of the Google Librarian Central newsletter on their website. It touches lightly on the reasons for their silence and then talks about some of their latest endeavors.
— Peter Murray Jul 11, 02:44 PM #
Just a note that while Google might have missed ALA, they’ve been very busy in the last year working on great new features with OCLC, regarding linking between Open WorldCat and GBS. I think this is a much better use of Google staff time than hanging around the ALA conference, and serves the library profession and its patrons far better too.
— Melissa B Jul 11, 08:09 PM #
Al, you attribute libraries signing up with Google to poor leadership in the libraries. Notably, you suggest that “few or none” of those in charge were “faculty librarians,” by which I think you mean professional librarians. You then point to the following URL:
http://books.google.com/googlebooks/partners.html.
So, let’s look at the list. The only U.S. institutions on the list that were not led by professional librarians when the deals were made with Google are Harvard (and it’s hard to characterize Sid Verba as anything BUT a faculty librarian), and two consortia — the University of California Digital Library and the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, which is the Big Ten plus UIC plus the University of Chigago. But wait, almost all of the UC schools have libraries run by librarians or by faculty (indeed there may be no exceptions) and all of the CIC libraries do, too. Trust me that neither institution makes decisions of this kind without the individual schools being on board.
Thus, you say “few or none” when the data support a characterization of “all or almost all.”
Counting is an important skill, for faculty, for librarians, for faculty librarians, and even for those who make quasi-anonymous posts on blogs.
Among the people who you seem to be calling out for failures of librarianship are Karin Wittenborg, Fred Heath, Mike Keller, Karen Trainer, Anne Kenney, David Ferriero and Jim Neal. That’s pretty good company.
Regarding the broader questions about libraries and Google discussed in this thread, I have commented (and been commented upon) at some length on my blog at http://paulcourant.net/2007/11/04/on-being-in-bed-with-google/
— Paul Courant Jul 12, 08:53 AM #