COPYCENSE

"Librarians, academicians, journalists, information industry pundits, and real people continue to ring in with comments, concerns, quarrels, and commendations for Google’s new library program. ‘This is the day the world changes,’ said John Wilkin, a University of Michigan librarian working with Google. ‘It will be disruptive because some people will worry that this is the beginning of the end of libraries. But this is something we have to do to revitalize the profession and make it more meaningful.’

"When asked whether Google is building the library to replace all other libraries, Google representatives—after saluting the role of librarians—said they had ‘no such plans at the moment. There was too much work to do.’

"Here is a roundup of some of the questions asked and answers posited."

Barbara Quint. Google’s Library Project: Questions, Questions, Questions. InformationToday.com. Dec. 27, 2004.

See also:
Mary Minow. Google-Watchers – Want Privacy Guarantees Before Handing Over Library Books for Google Digitization. LibraryLaw Blog. Dec. 16, 2004.

Gary Price. Google Partners with Oxford, Harvard & Others to Digitize Libraries. Search Engine Watch. Dec. 14, 2004.

SNTReport.com™ Covering the Intersection of Collaboration and Technology. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"GuruNet–a reference service that bypasses search engines to yield succinct information on terms in any document–launched a new Web site Monday that it insists will not compete with Google.

"GuruNet, a New York-based, publicly traded company with a research and development unit in Jerusalem, gained attention in 1999 for its desktop application that made any word in a document searchable with a single click.

"Now, after an unsuccessful foray into the enterprise search market, the company has returned to its consumer roots by retiring its subscription service in favor of an ad-supported revenue model and launching Answers.com, a Web site that will allow people to access its information warehouse without downloading the GuruNet application."

Paul Festa. GuruNet Launches New Search Service. News.com. Jan. 3, 2005.

See also:
Gary Price. GuruNet Becomes Answers.com and Is Now Available Free!. Search Engine Watch. Jan. 3, 2005.

Walter S. Mossberg. GuruNet as a Reference Tool Goes Beyond Search Engines. WSJ.com. March 6, 2003.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"So, 2004 turned out to be a very exciting search engine year, after all. For a moment, one could believe that we were moving into an era with a virtual Google monopoly, and monopolies are seldom good for innovation.

"Instead there has grown up new alternatives. Competition is as fierce as ever, and given that both users and stockmarkets reward innovation, there has been a large number of refinements, new services and new products."

No author. Search Engine Trends in 2004. Pandia. Dec. 31, 2004.

SNTReport.com™ Covering the Intersection of Collaboration and Technology. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"Susan Wojcicki’s grandmother, a librarian for more than 30 years, ran the Slavic department at the Library of Congress. Now Wojcicki is overseeing Google Inc.’s ambitious plan to digitize the collections of five top libraries: Stanford, Harvard, Oxford, the University of Michigan and the New York Public Library.

"The project eventually will allow any Internet user anywhere in the world to search inside millions of volumes, seeing the pages exactly as they appear in the originals, complete with illustrations, charts and photos.

"The logistics involved are staggering."

Carolyn Said. Digitizing Books: A Mountainous Task for Google. SeattlePI.com. Dec. 24, 2004.

SNTReport.com™ Covering the Intersection of Collaboration and Technology. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"Susan Wojcicki’s grandmother, a librarian for more than 30 years, ran the Slavic department at the Library of Congress. Now Wojcicki is overseeing Google Inc.’s ambitious plan to digitize the collections of five top libraries: Stanford, Harvard, Oxford, the University of Michigan and the New York Public Library.

"The project eventually will allow any Internet user anywhere in the world to search inside millions of volumes, seeing the pages exactly as they appear in the originals, complete with illustrations, charts and photos.

"The logistics involved are staggering."

Carolyn Said. Digitizing Books: A Mountainous Task for Google. SeattlePI.com. Dec. 24, 2004.

SNTReport.com™ Covering the Intersection of Collaboration and Technology. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"This week Google Inc. down in Mountain View, wading in dough from its stock offering, announced it would use some of the money to put millions of volumes from the country’s great libraries online where anybody can use them.

"Don’t burn that library card just yet, though.

"There’s a catch. Well, several. First, as anyone trying to send Grandma’s recipe for plum pudding to a sister in Des Moines knows, scanning takes time. Google claims to have a new whiz-bang way to do it — there won’t be some luckless employee feeling her brain cells die as she flattens a book on a cranky copier page by page. It won’t say exactly what its method is.

"For a company bent on putting the universe at the disposal of anyone who can type words into a box, it seems less enthusiastic about information flowing out of its headquarters in Mountain View."

Adair Lara. ‘Googleizing’ Libraries Won’t Replace Books. San Francisco Chronicle. Dec. 18, 2004.

See also:
No author. Here’s What You Will – and Won’t – Be Able to See When Searching for Library Books on Google. Detroit Free Press. Dec. 15, 2004.

George Kerevan. Despite Google, We Still Need Good Libraries. Scotsman.com. Dec. 16, 2004.

National Public Radio. Google’s Plan Prompts a Question: What’s on the Web?. Talk of the Nation. Dec. 15, 2004.

Matt Hicks. Google’s Library Project Could Drive Content Contest. eWeek. Dec. 14, 2004.

Andrew Leonard. What Google Promises Us. Salon. Dec. 14, 2004.

(Editor�s Note: Salon.com normally requires a paid subscription, but you can view articles if you register for a free day pass.)

SNTReport.com™ Covering the Intersection of Collaboration and Technology. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"Last week, the financial and technological world saw yet another dot-com star go dark. In 1999, Commerce One Inc. was the belle of the dot-com IPO ball. Promising a gateway to faster, more efficient business-to-business (B2B) transactions over the Web, it was the No. 1 initial public offering of 1999, boosting its stock price over 600 percent and making millionaires out of its founders. After the crash of 2000, however, Commerce One’s fortunes reversed, leading it down a path to delisting and, eventually, bankruptcy.

"As in most bankruptcies, Commerce One’s creditors sought to sell off the company’s assets to the highest bidder, hoping to recoup its lost investment and satisfy the $9.7 million of outstanding debt the company had left behind. What made this fire sale different from most, though, was the power of a single set of assets — Commerce One’s Web services patent portfolio. In a relatively rare decision, the bankruptcy court decided to separate the sale of these patents from the sale of the rest of the company, thereby allowing a separate bidding process to take place exclusively for the patent portfolio.

"While the sale of patents is nothing new, the Commerce One patent auction highlights a disturbing trend in our current patent system."

Jason Schultz. When Dot-Com Patents Go Gad. Salon. Dec. 13, 2004.

(Editor�s Note: Salon.com normally requires a paid subscription, but you can view articles if you register for a free day pass.)

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.