How Google Can Save America’s Books

Robert Darnton

Félix Vallotton

Google represents the ultimate in business plans. By controlling access to information, it has made billions, which it is now investing in the control of the information itself. What began as Google Book Search is therefore becoming the largest library and book business in the world. Like all commercial enterprises, Google’s primary responsibility is to make money for its shareholders. Libraries exist to get books to readers—books and other forms of knowledge and entertainment, provided for free. The fundamental incompatibility of purpose between libraries and Google Book Search could be mitigated if Google were willing to contribute some of its data and expertise to the creation of a Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). Continue lendo →

The US government’s Office of Science and Technology Policy is hosting a forum for debating an expansion of an open access policy, used by the National Institute of Health, that guarantees all publications derived from the agency’s funding are available to the public within one year.

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Em cinco anos, no máximo, não fará diferença o sistema operacional que você usa no seu computador. Tudo está indo para a rede, de aplicativos simples a suites on line (processadores de texto, planilhas eletrônicas, programas de apresentação etc). O Google deu mais um passo nessa direção, com o anúncio de um novo sistema operacional. Veja aqui.

Uma discussão que apenas se iniciou e que tem o potencial de transformar de modo radical o acesso ao conhecimento. O artigo de Robert Darnton, na New York Review of Books, apresenta a complexidade das consequências do acordo que o Google acabou de firmar com editoras e autores no contexto do programa de digitalização de livros que o gigante da internet empreende já há alguns anos.