Following the recent debate and legal furore over Google's plans to scan millions of the world's books, little has been know to date about how the company has actually been planning to DO the scanning. Until now.
Bobbie Johnson notes in the Guardian that Google claims to be "light years ahead of the flatbed scanners we're all used to - systems that inevitably proved unreliable or destroyed the books they were intended to preserve."
Well, the cat is now out of the bag, with a new National Public Radio report noting that Google's patented book scanning system is based around 3D infra-red cameras, meaning "no more broken bindings, no more inefficient glass plates."
The ultimate digital library
The Department of Justice in the US is currently reviewing Google's recent settlement deal with the Author's Guild.
The Register reports this week that the latest high-profile filing has arrived from The American Library Association (ALA), the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) all urging the court to "vigorously exercise its jurisdiction over the interpretation and implementation of the Settlement" and "make clear that it intends to oversee the Settlement closely."
The Library Associations note that: "The cost of creating [a digital library] and Google's significant lead-time advantage suggest that no other entity will create a competing digital library for the foreseeable future.
"The Settlement...will likely have a significant and lasting impact on libraries and the public, including authors and publishers. But in the absence of competition for the services enabled by the Settlement, this impact may not be entirely positive."
Via The Register
