Google and U.C. sign contract to digitize books

Submitted by rochelle on August 9, 2006 - 2:33pm
Topic: 
Google

Anonymous Patron writes " CNET News.com: Google has added another partner to its controversial library-book scanning project--the University of California, which is also working with a team led by Yahoo, Microsoft and the Internet Archive."

Comments

Submitted by Peter on August 10, 2006 - 2:41pm.

With apologies to Highlander for messing with their signature line, I saw this bit in the CNET news article -- the first time I think I've seen direct reference to search engine restrictions:

Google is sharing the copies of the scanned books with its library partners but restricting access to them beyond that. For instance, the books can be searched only in its index and not through any other search engines.

I can understand Google not wanting this content to appear in, say, Yahoo's engine. But if true, that would severely limit what a library partner can do with the copies of the images, wouldn't it? And does this restriction apply to both the in-house users of the partner libraries as well as us here on the outside?

And in California's situation, it likely means a very rigid segregation of content digitized under the OCA program (which wouldn't have the search engine restriction) and content they get back from Google under its program.

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