Part 9
[Summary] Google launched Google Print in May 2005, followed by Google Books in August 2006, while struggling with associations of authors and publishers. The beta version of Google Print went live in May 2005, with: (a) a project aimed at publishers, launched in October 2004; and (b) a project intended for libraries, launched in December 2004. Three months later, Google Print was stopped until further notice because of lawsuits filed by associations of authors and publishers for copyright infringement. The program resumed in August 2006 under the new name of Google Books. Google Books started offering books digitized in the participating libraries (Harvard, Stanford, Michigan, Oxford, California, Virginia, Wisconsin-Madison, Complutense of Madrid, and New York Public Library), with either the full text for public domain books or excerpts for copyrighted books. Other libraries joined then. Google also tried to settle a lawsuit with associations of authors and publishers in October 2008. A agreement has not be reached yet (as of July 2011).
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Google launched Google Print in May 2005, followed by Google Books in August 2006, while struggling with associations of authors and publishers.
The beta version of Google Print went live in May 2005, after two earlier steps. In October 2004, Google launched the first part of Google Print as a project aimed at publishers, for internet users to be able to see excerpts of books and order them online. In December 2004, Google launched the second part of Google Print as a project intended for libraries, to build up a digital library of 15 million books by digitizing the collections of major partner libraries, beginning with the libraries of the Universities of Michigan (7 million books), Harvard, Stanford and Oxford, and the New York Public Library. The planned cost in 2004 was an average of US $10 per book, and a total budget of $150 to $200 million for ten years. Three months later, Google Print was stopped until further notice because of lawsuits filed by associations of authors and publishers for copyright infringement.
The program resumed in August 2006 under the new name of Google Books. The participating libraries now also included the libraries of the Universities of California, Virginia, and Wisconsin-Madison, and the Complutense of Madrid. Google Books provided a full text for public domain books, and excerpts for copyrighted books. According to some media buzz, Google was scanning 3,000 books a day.
After three years of conflict, Google reached a settlement in October 2008 with associations of authors and publishers, with an agreement to be signed during the next years. The inclusion of copyrighted works in Google Books had been widely criticized by authors and publishers worldwide. In the U.S., lawsuits were filed by the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) for alleged copyright infringement. The assumption was that the full scanning and digitizing of copyrighted books infringed copyright laws, even if only snippets were made freely available, whereas Google thought this was "fair use", referring to short excerpts from copyrighted books that could be lawfully quoted in another book or website, as long as the source (author, title, publisher) was mentioned.
As of December 2008, Google had 24 library partners, including a Swiss one (University Library of Lausanne), a French one (Lyon Municipal Library), a Belgian one (Ghent University Library), a German one (Bavarian State Library), two Spanish ones (National Library of Catalonia, and University Complutense of Madrid), and a Japanese one (Keio University Library). The U.S. partner libraries were, per alphabetical order: Columbia University, Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), Cornell University Library, Harvard University, New York Public Library, Oxford University, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of California, University of Michigan, University of Texas at Austin, University of Virginia, and University of Wisconsin-Madison.
2005 > THE OPEN CONTENT ALLIANCE, A UNIVERSAL LIBRARY
[Summary] Starting with an idea from the Internet Archive, the Open Content Alliance (OCA) was launched in October 2005 as a global effort from a group of cultural, technology, non profit, and governmental organizations to build "a digital archive of global content for universal access" and offer a permanent repository of multilingual text and multimedia content. The first 100,000 ebooks were available in the Internet Archive in December 2006, with 12,000 new ebooks posted per month. Unlike Google Books, OCA books are searchable and downloadable through any web search engine, and don't include copyrighted books, unless the copyright holder has expressly given permission. The first contributors to OCA were the University of California, the University of Toronto, the European Archive, the National Archives in United Kingdom, O'Reilly Media, and the Prelinger Archives. One million ebooks were available in the Internet Archive in December 2008, and two million ebooks in March 2010.
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Starting with an idea from the Internet Archive, the Open Content Alliance (OCA) was launched in October 2005 as a effort to build "a digital archive of global content for universal access".
The goal was to offer a permanent repository of multilingual text and multimedia content. The first 100,000 ebooks were available in the Internet Archive in December 2006, with 12,000 new ebooks posted per month.
What exactly is the Internet Archive? Founded in April 1996 by Brewster Kahle in San Francisco, California, the Internet Archive is a non- profit organization that has built an "internet library" to offer permanent access to historical collections in digital format for researchers, historians and scholars. An archive of the web has been stored every two months or so since 1996, and has been freely available through the Wayback Machine since October 2001. As "a nonprofit digital library dedicated to providing universal access to human knowledge", the Internet Archive has also become a digital library of text, audio, software, image and video content.
As explained in 2007 on the OCA website, OCA "is a collaborative effort of a group of cultural, technology, nonprofit, and governmental organizations from around the world that helps build a permanent archive of multilingual digitized text and multimedia material. An archive of contributed material is available on the Internet Archive website and through Yahoo! and other search engines and sites. The OCA encourages access to and reuse of collections in the archive, while respecting the content owners and contributors."
Unlike Google Books, OCA books are searchable and downloadable through any web search engine, and don't include copyrighted books, unless the copyright holder has expressly given permission. The first contributors to OCA were the University of California, the University of Toronto, the European Archive, the National Archives in United Kingdom, O'Reilly Media, and the Prelinger Archives.
In 2006, Microsoft, while being one of the OCA partners, began developing its own digital library. The beta version of Microsoft Live Search Books was released in December 2006, with a collection of non copyrighted books digitized by Microsoft in partner libraries. The first partner libraries were the British Library and the libraries of the Universities of California and Toronto, followed in January 2007 by the New York Public Library and Cornell University Library. Books offered full text views, with a search by keyword, and could be downloaded as PDF files. In May 2007, Microsoft announced agreements with several publishers, for example Cambridge University Press and McGraw Hill, for their books to be available in Live Search Books. After digitizing 750,000 books and indexing 80 million journal articles, Microsoft ended the Live Search Books program in May 2008 and closed the website. All the digitized books were transferred into the OCA collection of the Internet Archive.
The OCA collection offered one million books in December 2008, and two million books in March 2010.
2006 > THE UNION CATALOG WORLDCAT ON THE WEB
[Summary] In August 2006, WorldCat, a union catalog run by OCLC (Online Computer Library Center), began migrating to the web with a version available for free. OCLC was founded as early as 1971 as a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering access to the world's information while reducing information costs. In 2005, WorldCat had 61 million bibliographic records in 400 languages, provided by 9,000 member libraries in 112 countries. In 2006, 73 million bibliographic records were linking to one billion documents available in these libraries. Through the current worldcat.org, member libraries have provided free access to their catalogs, and free or paid access to their electronic resources: books, audiobooks, abstracts and full-text articles, photos, music CDs, and videos. In April 2010, 1,5 billion documents could be located and/or accessed using WorldCat. The other main union catalog was run by RLG (Research Librairies Group), that merged with OCLC in November 2006.
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In August 2006, WorldCat, a union catalog run by OCLC (Online Computer Library Center), began migrating to the web with a version available for free.
WorldCat followed the steps of RLG (Research Libraries Group), that launched the free web version of the RLG Union Catalog, called RedLightGreen, in fall 2003, with a full version available in spring 2004.
OCLC and RLG were running the two largest union catalogs in the world.
What exactly is a union catalog? The idea behind a union catalog is to earn time by avoiding the cataloging of the same document by many catalogers worldwide. When catalogers of a member library (paid subscription) process a new document, they first search the union catalog. If the record is available, they import it into their own catalog and add the local data. If the record is not available, they create it in their own catalog and export it into the union catalog, for the new record to be instantly available to all catalogers of member libraries. Depending on their status and experience, member libraries can either import records only, or both import and export records.
OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) was created in 1971 as a non- profit organization dedicated to furthering access to the world's information while reducing information costs. The OCLC Online Union Catalog, later renamed WorldCat, was first the union catalog of the university libraries in the State of Ohio, before becoming a national library cooperative and then an organization spreading worldwide, with WorldCat becoming one of the two largest union catalogs in the world (the other one being RLIN). In early 1998, WorldCat had 38 million records in 400 languages, and 27,000 member libraries in 65 countries, with 2 million records added annually.
WorldCat only accepted one bibliographic record per document, unlike RLIN, launched by RLG in 1980, that accepted several records per document, with 88 million records in early 1998. RLG members were mainly research and specialized libraries. RLIN was later renamed the RLG Union Catalog. Its free web version RedLightGreen was launched in fall 2003 as a beta version, and in spring 2004 as a full version.
In the meantime, WorldCat had 61 million bibliographic records in 400 languages in 2005, from 9,000 member libraries in 112 countries. In 2006, 73 million bibliographic records were linking to one billion documents available in these libraries.
In August 2006, WorldCat began migrating to the web with the beta version of its new website worldcat.org. Member libraries have provided free access to their catalogs, and free or paid access to their electronic resources: books, audiobooks, abstracts and full-text articles, photos, music CDs and videos. RedLightGreen closed its site in November 2006, and RLG merged with OCLC. In April 2010, 1,5 billion documents could be located and/or accessed using WorldCat.
2007 > THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE, A GLOBAL EFFORT
[Summary] The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) was launched in May 2007 as a global scientific effort to document all known species of animals and plants (1.8 million), including endangered species, and expedite the millions of species yet to be discovered and cataloged (6 to 8 million). The encyclopedia's honorary chair is Edward Wilson, professor emeritus at Harvard University, who, in an essay dated 2002, was the first to express the wish for such an encyclopedia. Technology improvements made it possible five years later with content aggregators, mash-up, wikis, and large scale content management. The multimedia encyclopedia has gathered texts, photos, maps, sound, and videos, with a webpage for each species, to provide a single portal for millions of documents scattered online and offline. The first pages were available in mid- 2008. The encyclopedia will be translated into other languages with the help of partner organizations.
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The Encyclopedia of Life was launched in May 2007 as a global scientific effort to document all known species of animals and plants.
There are 1.8 million species, including endangered species, and millions of species yet to be discovered and cataloged, probably 6 to 8 million.
This collaborative effort is led by several main institutions: Field Museum of Natural History, Harvard University, Marine Biological Laboratory, Missouri Botanical Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL).
The initial funding came from the MacArthur Foundation (US $10 million) and the Sloan Foundation ($2.5 million). A $100 million funding over ten years will be necessary before self-financing.
The encyclopedia's honorary chair is Edward Wilson, professor emeritus at Harvard University, who, in an essay dated 2002, was the first to express the wish for such an encyclopedia. Technology improvements made it possible five years later, with content aggregators, mash-up, wikis, and large scale content management.
Based on the work of thousands of experts around the globe, the multimedia encyclopedia will gather texts, photos, maps, sound and videos, with a webpage for each species. It will provide a single portal for millions of documents scattered online and offline. As a teaching and learning tool for a better understanding of our planet, the encyclopedia will reach everyone: researchers, teachers, students, pupils, media, policy makers, and the general public, who will be able to contribute in a wiki-style environment, with contributions checked by experts.
As a consortium of the ten largest life science libraries, with other libraries to join in the future, the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) started the digitization of 2 million documents from public domain spanning over 200 years. In May 2007, when the project was officially launched, 1.25 million pages were already digitized in London, Boston and Washington D.C., and available in the Internet Archive.
The first pages of the encyclopedia were designed in 2007, and available in mid-2008. The encyclopedia should be fully "operational" in 2012 and completed with all known species in 2017. People will be able to use the encyclopedia as a "macroscope" to identify major trends from a considerable stock of information -- in the same way they use a microscope for the study of detail. The English version will be translated in several languages by partner organizations.
2007 > THE FUTURE OF EBOOKS SEEN FROM FRANCE
[Summary] Marc Autret, a journalist and graphic designer, wrote in December 2006: "I am convinced that the ebook has a great future in all non-fiction sectors. I refer to the ebook as a software and not as a dedicated physical medium (the conjecture is more uncertain on this point). (...) Non-commercial ebooks are already emerging everywhere while opening the way to new developments. To my eyes, there are at least two emerging trends: (a) an increasingly attractive and functional interface for reading/consultation (navigation, research, restructuring on the fly, user annotations, interactive quiz); (b) a multimedia integration (video, sound, animated graphics, database) now strongly coupled to the web. No physical book offers such features. So I imagine the ebook of the future as a kind of wiki crystallized and packaged in a given format. How valuable will it be? Its value will be the one of a book: the unity and quality of editorial work!"
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In late 2006, I launched an inquiry about how people were seeing the future of ebooks. Here are the answers from Pierre Schweitzer, Denis Zwirn and Marc Autret, three French "pioneers" in their own fields.
Pierre Schweitzer is the inventor of the @folio project, a mobile device for texts. He wrote in December 2006: "The luck we all have is to live this fantastic change here and now. When I was born in 1963, a computer memory could only hold a few pages of characters. Today, my music player could hold billions of pages, a true local library. Tomorrow, by the combined effect of the Moore Law and the ubiquity of networks, we will have instant access to works and knowledge. We won't be much interested any more on which device to store information. We will be interested in handy functions and beautiful objects."
Denis Zwirn is the founder of Numilog, the main French-language digital bookstore. He wrote in August 2007: "The digital book is not any more a topic for symposiums, conceptual definitions, or divination by some 'experts'. It is a commercial product and a tool for reading. There is no need to wait for some new hypermodern and hypertextual tool carefully orchestrating its specificity from the print book. We need to offer books that can be easily read on any electronic device used by customers, sooner or later with an electronic ink display. And to offer them as an industry. The digital book is not, and will never be, a niche product (dictionaries, travel guides, books for the blind). It is becoming a mass market product, with multiple forms, like the traditional book."
After being a journalist specialized in publishing, multimedia and copyright, Marc Autret is a graphic designer working with publishers. He wrote in December 2006: "I am convinced that the ebook has a great future in all non-fiction sectors. I refer to the ebook as a software and not as a dedicated physical medium (the conjecture is more uncertain on this point). The [European] publishers of guides, encyclopedias and informative books in general still see the ebook as a very minor variation of the printed book, probably because the business model and secure management don't seem entirely stabilized. But this is a matter of time. Non-commercial ebooks are already emerging everywhere while opening the way to new developments.
To my eyes, there are at least two emerging trends: (a) an increasingly attractive and functional interface for reading/consultation (navigation, searching, restructuring on the fly, annotations of the user, interactive quiz); (b) a multimedia integration (video, sound, animated graphics, database) now strongly coupled to the web. No physical book offers such features. So I imagine the ebook of the future as a kind of wiki crystallized and packaged in a given format. How valuable will it be? Its value will be the one of a book: the unity and quality of editorial work!"
Marc was not happy about the "competition" between PDF and EPUB. He added in June 2011: "I do regret that the emergence of EPUB has led to the outright annihilation of PDF as a format for digital books. The fact that interactivity elements available within the PDF are not supported by the current mobile platforms has removed any possibility of experimenting new things in this direction, that had seemed very promising to me. While print publishing gives place to many different objects, ranging from the carefully designed art book to the basic book for everyday reading, the ebook market has grown from the start on a totalitarian and segregationist mode, comparable to a war between operating systems, rather than favoring a technical and cultural emulation. Because of this, there are few PDF digital books benefiting from the opportunities given by this format.
In the unconscious collective mind, PDF has stayed a kind of static duplicate of the print book, and nobody wants to see any other fate for him. The EPUB format, which is nothing but a combination of XHTML/CSS (admittedly with JavaScript prospects), consists in putting the digital book 'in phase with' the web. This is a technology that has favored structured content, but hasn't favored typographic craft at all. It has given a narrow vision of the digital work, reducing it to a flow of information. We don't measure it yet, but the worst cultural disaster in recent decades has been the advent of XML, as a language that pre- calibrates and contaminates the way we think our hierarchies. XML and its avatars go on locking us in the cultural invariants of the Western world."
2010 > FROM THE LIBRIE TO THE IPAD
[Summary] After a quiet time in the early 2000s, ebook readers "took off" again, from the Librie launched by Sony in April 2004 to the iPad launched by Apple in April 2010. The first dedicated ebook readers were the Rocket eBook (1998), the SoftBook Reader (1998) and the Gemstar eBook (November 2000), which didn't last long. Lighter ebook readers storing more books showed up with new E Ink displays, for exemple Librie from Sony (April 2004), Cybook 2nd generation (June 2004), Sony Reader (September 2006), Kindle from Amazon (November 2007), and Nook from Barnes & Noble (November 2009). Competition has been fierce with smartphones (from 2005) and with the iPad from Apple (April 2010). Some readers are now eager to read multimedia/hypermedia content and stories in 3D on flexible devices.
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After a quiet time in the early 2000s, ebook readers "took off" again, from the Librie launched by Sony in April 2004 to the iPad launched by Apple in April 2010.
The first dedicated ebook readers were the Rocket eBook (1998), the SoftBook Reader (1998) and the Gemstar eBook (November 2000), which didn't last long. Lighter ebook readers storing more books showed up with new E Ink displays, for example the Librie from Sony (April 2004), the Cybook 2nd generation (June 2004), the Sony Reader (September 2006), the Kindle from Amazon (November 2007), and the Nook from Barnes & Noble (November 2009). Competition has been fierce with smartphones (from 2005) and with the iPad from Apple (April 2010).
# The Librie (Sony)
Sony launched its first ebook reader, Librie 1000-EP, in Japan in April 2004, in partnership with Philips and E Ink. Librie was the first ebook reader to use a 6-inch E Ink screen, with a 10 M memory, and a 500- ebook storage capacity. Ebooks were downloaded from a computer with a USB cable.
# The Cybook (Bookeen)
After a Cybook 1st generation launched in January 2001 by Cytale as the first European ebook reader, the Cybook project was taken over by Bookeen, a company created in 2003 by Michael Dahan and Laurent Picard, two former engineers from Cytale. A Cybook 2nd generation was available in June 2004. The Cybook Gen3 (3rd generation) was launched in July 2007, with a E Ink display.
# The Sony Reader
Sony Reader was launched in October 2006 in the U.S. as the first ebook reader using the latest E Ink screen technology, The screen gave "an excellent reading experience very close to that of real paper, making it very easy going on the eyes" (Mike Cook, editor of epubBooks.com). Another major feature of the reader was its battery life, with over 7,000 pages turns -- or up to two weeks of power - on just one battery charge. It was also the first ebook reader to use Adobe Digital Editions. It was available then in Canada, United Kingdom, Germany and France.