A Few Thoughts on the Google Books Library Project

"A Few Thoughts on the Google Books Library Project"
Charles Edward Smith
EDUCAUSE Quarterly
Volume 31, Number 1, 2008Only by transforming knowledge contained in print to new and easily accessible digital formats can we guarantee its survival.

A curious amount of unease surrounds Google's initiative to scan thousands of books in major research libraries and make them available online. Although I understand the concerns, I don't entirely sympathize with them. About ten years ago, while writing a dissertation, I also started research on an article that CAUSE (now EDUCAUSE) published in 1999.1 It was no easy task because the Internet at the time had just begun to show its promise. Nonetheless, performing my first real research on the Internet for that article provided a window through which I could see at least some small part of the future.

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