This is mainly in response to a blog that bashed Google books in 2007. I’m not sure if this outlook is clearly outdated as it is currently 2013, or if this individual is just overly cynical regarding the free service provided by Google Books, regardless I take some issue with this overly critical view. The first statement I have to say is: Something is always better than nothing. The flippant attitude about how the individual running this blog believes that Google won’t actually fix problems within their own system is clearly the attitude of someone, who also admits to there being others who know much more about technology than him, who doesn’t understand the way that those working in a field such as the individuals who run the Google Books system work. Yes, faulty metadata is a problem and adding more to Google Books could create a very real backlog, but his overall point that this means that not everything will be available because of copyright law leads me to the point that I’d rather be able to access some material than none at all. The very fact that Google is trying to get as much material available as possible means that there will be more material for more people to access, and if these individuals are doing their research correctly, they will be looking at the source as well as the metadata and will realize mistakes as they arise. To me the metadata issue is something that really isn’t that big of a problem if you don’t take everything at face value and you actually take a moment to check the information you are getting.
Furthermore, I find the overall complaint about scan quality to be a superficial one at best. Again, I don’t know if this is because of how dated the article is, but I am yet to run into anything on Google books that has the issues that he has brought up. Regardless though, if there is a problem with one of the scans: so what? This happens the individuals who are scanning this material are still human and mistakes are made. The correct course of action would be to bring this issue to the proper “authorities”. I honestly believe that this entire blog was an exercise in how to drive people away from listening to, and backing, professional historians as this individual seems to be a part of the lofty ivory tower league of historians who look down their noses at everyone and leave a bad taste in the mouth of the layman. And if I am off base on this assumption, he sure did a great job of convincing me that I wasn’t.
Lincoln Loves Cats 