SXSW Notes: Book Digitization and the Revenge of the Librarians
Panelists:
- Daniel Clancy Google
- Bob Stein
- Danielle Tiedt GM, Microsoft
- Elizabeth Lawley Professor, RIT
LL: Concerns ->
- chilling effect of requiring login for viewing of resources, etc.
- rankings are opaque systems
DC:
- Asked group of students how many had been to the library in last year; less than 1/2 had.
- two programs – publisher program and library program
- publisher program works with currently available materials
- library program works with out-of-copyright materials, etc.
DT:
- Sees Microsoft’s digitization efforts as intended to help them “answer questions better”
- Wishes government would take a larger role in digitization – from Microsoft’s perspective, she’d rather everything was already scanned so that all she had to do was crawl it, index it and create a user interface that makes users want to use it via Microsoft.
- Ultimately, corporations are going to be concerned about the bottom line
DC:
- Asks Bob Stein:
- Would you rather we cancel the project?
- Would you really want the U.S. government in charge?
LL: What about decentralization? Can individuals scan individual books?
Kevin Smokler (question): Is there really such a demand for digitization of 19th century lit that justifies a rush forward without concern for the cultural and ethical questions posed?
DC: Yes (particularly for still-in-copyright works)
BS: There’s a certian disingenuousness to the argument that this is all about making the materials available; the purpose of Google’s project is not so much about making the world’s information available as it is about serving ads and gathering information about us.
March 13th, 2006 at 10:55 am
Hey Josh – hope this is an OK way to get in touch with you! just thought I’d drop you a line since I’ve been so slack after running into you! Let me know what’s up, if you would like to get together or whatever. work is the best place to find me anice@hud.gov
anice
March 21st, 2006 at 9:45 pm
It was no “Snakes on a Plane”, but this was a great panel.
October 25th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
[…] This upcoming conference, as well as the fast-approaching annual conference by the American Historical Association, has had me thinking about best strategies for blogging conference sessions. Blogging conferences is nothing new: Kottke recently blogged PopTech, Josh Greenberg blogged notes from South by Southwest last semester (as did scores of other bloggers), just to name a few examples. I plan to blog about the session this weekend, and the sessions I’ll attend at the AHA. With that in mind, I’d like to come up with a few good approaches to best blog conference sessions. So, good readers of ClioWeb, do you have suggestions? Links to resources? […]