This Week in LIS - 18 September 2009

Headline of the Week: The Future: What Google Is Really Up To

Each summer LIS spends a day discussing, planning, and visioning our work for the coming year. The tangible results of this work take their form in our objectives which spell out specific initiatives we plan to focus on for the coming academic year. This past summer, we set our focus a little further in the future, as we brainstormed what it would be like to design our services from scratch knowing what we know now about libraries, technology, and how information is consumed. While some aspects of our service would appear similar to how it is in current reality, we discussed many things that would look very different from how they do today.

With the rate of change in our profession clipping along quite quickly, it becomes more important for us as an organization to observe and plan for significant disruption in our assumptions about our work. There is (as with just about everything else) plenty of data on what is ‘next.’ We only need to apply it to ourselves with a critical eye to what these changes should and will mean. As an effort to keep these futurist topics in daily conversation, I’ll be using this space to highlight and probe topics that may bring into question how trends in the marketplace and technology may affect us in small and large ways.

This past week Google and OnDemandBooks announced a partnership (video) to bring the growing collection (currently more than 1,000,000) of public domain books directly to OnDemandBooks’ Espresso Book Machine. The Google content joins more than 800,000 in-copyright titles from more than 8,000 publishers and approximately 1,500,000 public domain titles available from the Internet Archive. While there is undoubtedly some overlap between catalogs, the size and scope are impressive. And that’s today.

With the comment period closed on the proposed Google Book Search legal settlement now closed, the back room negotiations are now in full swing. I think it likely that after some back-and-forth a settlement will be approved in some form, which will likely have the result that the entire (or nearly entire) Google catalog will be available as a marketable corpus, and also therefore available to the Espresso and other similar on-demand devices. The grander Google plan here is not so difficult to see (in fact it’s been there since day one for Google), tens of millions of digital titles encompassing many of the world’s research collections, an undeniably good index, a mechanism to reproduce the books cheaply and locally, as well as a partnership to deliver electronic copies to portable e-readers (all with appropriate rights and royalties thanks to the settlement) will have completely transformed how information is stored, delivered, and consumed. Still missing, though certainly on Google’s radar is metadata for their collection. I am waiting patiently for a more direct connection to OCLC (perhaps spelled a-c-q-u-i-s-i-t-i-o-n or m-e-r-g-e-r) which would effectively meld OCLC’s gold mine of metadata with the data itself.

With this new model, somebody is going to take it on the chin (or worse). Bookstores? Libraries? Authors? Publishers? Consumers? Google? (ha, hardly). The answer to that question I believe lies in how these industries plan for this new world. As with the tide, those who read the water can often avoid being swept out to sea, but that doesn’t make it easy, or the exact route easy to discern.

Bookstores: Wonder why Amazon is lobbying against the Google settlement … Amazon helped sunset the local bookstore by centralization of the physical item, but centralization of the virtual item is where the future lies because the physical item can be created from the virtual. As the costs of creating that on-demand item drop, so does Amazon’s business model (for books at least). Why would I wait a couple days for a book to be delivered to me when I can search it online and order it to be printed at my local book shop in the next hour? With Kindle, Amazon has had an opportunity for e-reader market, but I believe their lack of openness on the platform may be a significant mistake. For smaller local booksellers that buy into on-demand technology (Espresso’s run $80,000 and up – not that expensive in my opinion), those that get in early will see a reward. Being the place in your town with on-demand access to a catalog this big is a draw, and we know the book business isn’t going to instantly melt away. The second, third, and fourth machines in a market will likely see diminishing returns. (Small town perspective here – larger markets will of course support more outlets). Issues of inventory management will fade for stores (a good thing), and their shelves turn more into displays of samples. The browsing experience can be preserved (even expanded) while inventory always matches need.

Libraries: The amount of money spent by libraries to proactively acquire, catalog and maintain just-in-time collections on the hope and prayer that someone will use them is staggering. We know there are titles that have been acquired that are never cracked open. I’m sure the statistics for different libraries on this are all over the map. But in an on-demand world, why doesn’t the use statistic become 100%? All books are relevant and used. Is this the death of traditional collection development (and traditional acquisitions)? Collecting will still happen, but the user is the selector, and the Espresso is the acquirer now. How about interlibrary loan? Libraries will again spend good chunks of money to ship books hither and yon (often of old and out-of-print materials). In the on-demand world, we take the order, click print, catalog it, and I’m betting come out ahead financially on the deal. Additional questions: what is the purpose of a stored library collection? How does the local (or even consortial) online catalog fit in the Google Book Search world? Does it?

Authors: A glance to the music industry shows that radically new distribution methods can’t kill creativity. It’s arguably easier than ever for artists to create and distribute their work to ever-increasingly niche markets. This is thanks to digital distribution. Yes there is a piracy angle here, and artists do carry a liability for that, but not the principal one (in my opinion). A similar world for books would I think be liberating for authors who would have access to an amazingly direct and efficient distribution channel for content.

Publishers: I just don’t see much good news here. As with the recording industry, the folks in the middle who market and manage are increasingly marginalized as artists seek to connect directly with their audiences. Perhaps the best thing they have to offer is a name and reputation, yet I believe the social media revolution will bring new ways to assign authority and reliability to content that rely less and less on a publisher’s name. As with music, individuals will be able to publish themselves, or band together in niche publishing circles.

Consumers: Consumers want easy access to the broadest catalog in multiple forms (print, electronic, digest, etc.). They also want to know how a given work relates to other related works. Information wants to be free, though we have clear precedent that consumers will pay for services that open new possibilities in use. Google’s model does all this, and I think would do it well. Others could (and I’m sure they will) follow the same road as Google in providing this service. All the work we as humans have collectively pursued in building and growing our wisdom and knowledge have built to this next step. I think it’s pretty clear we’re going there, and provided that the economics are appropriate and fair, this will mark a huge victory in unlocking so much of our intellectual heritage for all around the world to see – indeed these days, anyone with a cell phone.

Google: Somehow, I think they’ll do just fine.

My open question for Luther then is, what do these changes really mean for us, and not just in LIS, but the Book Shop, and what changes does it mean for our faculty and students. The infrastructure for this new model is all in place today, and it will just continue to evolve and grow. And I think the changes it brings won’t be small here or anywhere else.

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LIS Blog Highlights from the Week

The following articles are sampled from those available on the LIS Blog:

• New Phishing email
• Library professional staff meeting 9-14-09
• Wireless Network Maintenance during regular LIS Maintenance window 9/17/09
• User Services Meeting – 9/15/09
• Internet Connection Limits
• Upcoming NITLE Sessions on Moodle
• LIS Web Updates – 9/17/09
• New Colleague Search Option for Sources [Luther Only]

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Notes from LIS Council

LIS Council met August 18th and discussed the following topics:

• Upcoming LIS mixer for student employees
• Update on service point renovation
• Upcoming electronics recycling opportunities
• GoPrint
• Emergency response planning
• Luther’s representatives to EDUCAUSE
• Internet bandwidth management / NetEqualizer connection limits
• File Sharing
• LIS metrics

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NITLE Opportunities

As a member of NITLE (National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education), Luther has the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of developmental and training programs intended for faculty, librarians, and information technologists. Events listed at the link below are currently open for registration by Luther participants. LIS Staff who are interested in participating in an event should speak with Christopher Barth. Faculty who are interested in participating should speak with Lori Stanley. Participation is contingent upon available funding and program acceptance.

A full list of events (sortable by registration deadline) is available at http://www.nitle.org/www/events.

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Upcoming LIS Training, Instruction, and Professional Development Opportunities

Click on the event below for specific information and for a link to register. More information on training and development events is available.

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Internet Resource of the Week: Classify

A site to scratch the geeky cataloger in us all. (You mean not everyone has a geeky cataloger locked within?) OCLC has made available an experimental service to provide call number information for books, DVDs, CDs, and many other kinds of media based upon their broad dataset. Drawing on 36 million catalog records, users can submit an ISBN, ISSN, UPC, OCLC number, or author/title combination to retrieve data on how that particular item is numbered across OCLC’s data. Dewey, Library of Congress and National Library of Medicine numbers are incldued.

While the service focuses on call numbers, along for the ride on your results screen come edition and holdings information, some pie charts showing how the item is classed by percentage of records, subject headings (and more pie graphs), as well as some edition-specific metadata.

On the web at http://http://deweyresearch.oclc.org/classify2/

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Quote(s) of the Week:

• “We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.” – Jean Baudrillard

• “There is no such thing as information overload but filter failure.” – Dennis Crowley (Clay Shirky)

• “Picture an entire city, a modern, wealthy place, in the richest country in the world, in which the vital services provided by libraries are withdrawn due to political brinksmanship and an unwillingness to spare one banker’s bonus worth of tax-dollars to sustain an entire region’s connection with human culture and knowledge and community. Think of it and ask yourself what the hell has happened to us.” – Cory Doctorow (on the threatened shutdown of the Free Library of Philadelphia)

• “Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.” – Thomas H. Huxley

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Image of the Week: Software Engineering Explained

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Video of the Week: Did You Know? 4.0

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Links of the Week

• Books, Media, and Publishing
  • 5 Major Research Universities Endorse Open-Access Journals [Chronicle of Higher Education]
  • On the ropes? Robert Darnton’s Case for Books [Publisher’s Weekly]
  • ‘It’s the Editor, Stupid’ [Good]
  • Microsoft’s vision for a “next-gen newspaper” looks like TweetDeck [Nieman Journalism Lab]
  • In Rochester, a newspaper dips into gaming to reach new young readers [Nieman Journalism Lab]
  • If New Media is a Giant Killer, Will Independent Publishing Get the Golden Eggs? [Publishing Perspectives]
  • The Peacock’s Tail – why e-books should cost more to make [TeleRead]
  • Ebooks will make authors soulless, just like their product [Telegraph]
  • A Big Boom in the Universe of Electronic Books [TechFlash]

• Copyright and Intellectual Property
  • France Approves Internet Piracy Bill [New York Times]
  • Stunned film, music sectors react to Veoh decision [cnet News]
  • Songwriters want to get paid for 30-second song previews [ars technica]
  • BBC To Kill Open Source TV? [ReadWriteWeb]

• Culture, Economy, and Business
  • Flipping abundance and scarity [Seth Godin]
  • Intuit To Acquire Mint For $170 Million [TechCrunch]
  • Discount Usability: 20 Years [Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox]
  • Time vs. Money: Which One Rules Consumer Choices, and Why? [Knowledge@Wharton]
  • The Dirty Little Secret About the ‘Wisdom of the Crowds’ – There is No Crowd [ReadWriteWeb]
  • Internet Activity Index Reveals Consumers Spend More Time Online with Content Than Community and Communications [Online Publishers Association]
  • Will Mint.com Change? Intuit Not Out to Change Mint says Founder [Mint.com Blog]

• Data Security and Privacy
  • Linux webserver botnet pushes malware [The Register]
  • Researchers Discover Botnet Commanded by Google Groups [ReadWriteWeb]
  • UC Davis case shows how Web comment anonymity’s not absolute [Sacramento Bee]
  • The Irony of Mandatory Filtering in China vs. the U.S. [Technology Liberation Front]
  • Brookings Institution: Open Networks a Win-Win [GigaOM]

• Future
  • What Traditional Scholars Can Learn From a Futurist’s University [Chronicle of Higher Education]

• Google and Search
  • How to make Google search in real-time [ReadWriteWeb]
  • Welcome to the Data Liberation Front [Google Data Liberation Blog]
  • Teaching computers to read: Google acquires reCAPTCHA [The Official Google Blog]
  • Bing grabs 10 percent of search market [cnet News]
  • Google Lets You Custom-Print Millions of Public Domain Books [Wired]
  • Report: Google considering book settlement tweaks [cnet News]
  • U.S. to File Concerns Over Google Book Pact [Wall Street Journal]

• Google Apps
  • Microsoft Starts to Roll Out Office Web Apps Beta [Web Worked Daily]

• Hardware and Technology Tools
  • 802.11n Wi-Fi standard finally approved [cnet News]
  • Heads up Apple, the Intel Netbook is unstoppable [cnet News]

• Higher Education
  • At Your Fingers, an Oxford Don [New York Times]
  • Colleges Cut Costs [Time]
  • Colleges are front lines for H1N1 outbreaks [Des Moines Register]
  • A Virtual Revolution Is Brewing for Colleges [Washington Post]
  • Critical thinking? You need knowledge [Boston Globe]
  • Education Spending Doubled, Stagnant Test Scores [Carpe Diem]
  • Private Student Loans Would Be Killed By House Bill [The Huffington Post]
  • Should Everyone Go to College? [Inside Higher Ed]
  • Luxury dorms: Purdue University, other schools build swanky housing to lure undergrads [Chicago Tribune]
  • Free Electronic Textbooks Do Not Hurt Print Sales, Report Says [Chronicle of Higher Education]

• Innovation and Design
  • About non-users of technologies [Pasta&Vinegar]

• Internet and Networking
  • Assessing the Internet: Great Creator or Destroyer? [GigaOM]
  • As the World Becomes Flat, Our Pipes Get Fat [GigaOM]

• Libraries and Librarians
  • All Free Library of Philadelphia Branch, Regional and Central Libraries Closed Effective Close of Business October 2, 2009 [Free Library of Philadelphia]
  • Illiteracy undermines Afghan army [Newsvine]
  • Is It a Library? A Student Center? The Athenaeum Opens at Goucher College [Chronicle of Higher Education]
  • Great Expectations – Keywords From a Librarian [Inside Higher Ed]
  • Philadelphia Libraries to Remain Open [Free Library of Philadelphia]

• Mobility
  • Wall Street Journal Takes Paywall Fight to Mobiles [Wired]

• Social Media & Communication
  • Coastal Elites Can’t Decide: Is Twitter a Force for Good or Evil? [Valleywag]
  • 20% of tweets about brands [Social Media Today]
  • @Mentions Are Now Live on Facebook [ReadWriteWeb]
  • The Web At A New Crossroads [ArcticStartup]
  • 300 Million and On | Facebook [The Facebook Blog]
  • Study: Facebook Now the Tenth Most Trusted Company in the US [InsideFacebook]
  • College Stars Run for Cover From Fans’ Hidden Cameras [New York Times]
  • ‘A Better Pencil’ [Inside Higher Ed]

• Software, Operating Systems, and The Cloud
  • None

The links and media above are selected from material posted to Infoneer.net, which gathers links and comment on the worlds of libraries, technology, higher education, culture, intellectual property, copyright, information, ethics, design, professional identity, leadership, and the future. Subscribe to Infoneer.net RSS

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This Week in LIS is published most Fridays by Christopher Barth, Executive Director of Library and Information Services at Luther College for the Luther College community as well as those interested in information services and higher education.

Content is made available under Creative Commons license.