Campus Technology has a well-documented article about Google Book Search: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly, which suggests that Google’s project is more about quantity than quality. For example, The University of California has to deliver 3,000 books a day to Google, according to their agreement. Robin Chandler, former director of data acquisitions for UC’s California Digital Library:
All of the libraries are talking about that, in the sense of what might be the most interesting materials to scan. But I’ll be very frank: There’s a real balance point between volume and selection, especially when looking at these numbers. UC is trying to meet the needs of the contract it’s signed.
Surprisingly, the scanning process involves humans, as you can see in some books from Google’s index (TechCrunch, Google Blogoscoped, George Hernandez, The Genealogue spotted fingers). “If you go into Google [Book Search] and look at any book, you’ll be able to see by the number of body parts and fingerprints that [the pages] are being turned manually,” suggests Linda Becker, VP at Kirtas, the company that produces the fastest robotic book scanner in the world: APT BookScan 2400.
The conclusion of the article is optimistic:
Tweet ThisWhen it comes down to it, then, this brave new world of book search probably needs to be understood as Book Search 1.0. And maybe participants should not get so hung up on quality that they obstruct the flow of an astounding amount of information. Right now, say many, the conveyor belt is running and the goal is to manage quantity, knowing that with time the rest of what’s important will follow. Certainly, there’s little doubt that in five years or so, Book Search as defined by Google will be very different. The lawsuits will have been resolved, the copyright issues sorted out, the standards settled, the technologies more broadly available, the integration more transparent.