The May 2005 issue of MIT's Technology Review has an article regarding Google's initiative to scan and digitize thousands of books, to be available full text to the public. Most books being scanned are not under copyright (anything published before January 1, 1923).
The article poses several questions, one being this: Will digitizing books for consumption online make libraries, their physical presence, obsolete? It is an interesting question but the answer seems to be "no".
Another issue is what will happen when a private, for-profit comapny starts dealing with information that has always been completely free through public and academic libraries.
Check out this article here in Vairo Library for the pros and cons of what Google and its partner libraries will be doing in the near future.
Posted by at April 12, 2005 04:02 PM