As we read articles about how the various Google initiatives are destroying life as we know it, we have to wonder where the viable alternatives are:
There is much hue and cry about how Google is a commercial entity and surely has a profit motive. Only the most naive of us would believe otherwise. But we should recall that this project does not come free to Google, either. While authors’ groups and publishers decry the commercial intent of a corporation, largely absent from the discussion is the announcement of a hint of an announcement of an industry initiative to engage in a project like this — for the sake of the art.
At some point, we’re going to be wringing our hands and bemoaning the loss of so much information. See the motion picture industry for an example. All that lovely film lost due to lack of a preservation plan. Don’t let it happen to books!
