More on Google Book Search Library Project (né: Google Library)

Google's controvesial plan to scan the contents of several major American libraries (recently renamed Google Book Search Library Project) has started to make its way into mainstream news. On Saturday I was listening to NPR and caught a discussion between Penn State University Press's Tony Sanfilippo and The Ethicist, Randy Cohen. Sanfilippo makes the University Press's case for why Google's plans are bad for nonprofit publishers like the university press community, and Cohen backs him up with the ethical take--Google's plan is like a burglar asking you to submit an opt-out list of things you don't want stolen. Worth a listen.

As well, the New York Times today has an interesting article on the project from the point of view of Harvard Library's Sidney Verba, whose favorability of Google's project seems to boil down to a fuddy-duddy "kids don't read books anymore" critique of undergraduates. Kids google everything these days instead of going ot the library, so, says Verba, naturally you should give Google the library. Perhapst most interesting about the article is the aura of mystery Google has shrouded its scanning technology in...no one really knows how they're going to scan all these books. I still like to imagine giant robots, maybe looking like locusts, turning the pages themselves and taking photos with green eyes. And they could have wings, so when the Author's Guild arrives with swords and livery, they can alight from their Ann Arbor warehouse and fly back to Google's evil lair.

the new houseblinging season is nearly upon us; rate my puppy; spreading the chatterbox love; is satan using gay people to further his agenda?