The Infinite Library

2

Undoubtedly, it will be a complex task. “It’s not just feeding the books into some kind of digitization machine,” says Susan Wojcicki, leader of the Google Print project. It also includes “taking the digital files, moving those files around, storing them, compressing them, OCR-ing them, indexing them and serving them up,” she points out. “At that point it becomes similar to all of Google’s other businesses, where we’re managing large amounts of data.”

 

Options for digitization collaborations

 

Some people are cautious about the leap Google’s partner libraries are taking. Brewster Kahle, founder of a nonprofit digital library, the Internet Archive, argues that all digital library materials should be as freely and openly accessible as physical library materials are now.

 

Previous digitization collaborations generally followed one of three models.

 

An example of the first model is Corbis, an image-licensing firm. Since the early 1990s, Corbis has acquired rights to digital reproductions of works from more than 17 museums. In some cases, it’s now impossible to use these images without paying Corbis. Kahle says, “The same thing could happen with digital literature.”

 

In the second model, parallel public and private databases coexist peacefully. Kahle cites the Human Genome Project, which culminated in a free version produced by government-funded scientists and a private version produced by Celera Genomics.

 

The third model hinges on partnerships in which private companies offer commercial access to digital books while public entities provide free access for research. An example is the Internet Archive’s collaboration with Alexa, an Amazon.com-owned company that ranks Web sites according to the traffic they attract. After six months, Alexa donates its data to the Internet Archive, which preserves it for noncommercial use.

 

So which comes closest to Google’s plans? Wojcicki says, “We’re trying to be as open as possible.”

Vocabulary Focus

serve up (idiom) to make something available

culminate (v) [5kQlmineit] to result in; to reach completion

hinge on (idiom) to depend on something or be very influenced by it

 

Specialized Terms

OCR (n) 光学字符识别 optical character recognition, the process by which an electronic device recognizes printed or written letters or numbers

无限图书馆

2

这无疑是个复杂的工程。“Google 印刷品”计划主持人苏珊·华曲斯基说：“不是把书喂入数字化机器就了事。”她指出，还包括了“取出数字档案、移动、储存、压缩、作光学字型辨识及将档案编入索引，再提供数据。”“那时就变得和Google 所有其它的业务类似，也就是管理大量的数据。”

 

数字化合作的方式

有些人对 Google 的合作图书馆所跨出的一大步持谨慎的态度。非营利数字图书馆网络档案室创办人布鲁斯特·寇尔则主张，所有数字图书馆的数据都应该像现在的实体图书馆一样免费和公开供人取阅。

以前的数字化合作通常遵循3种模式。

遵循第一种模式的例子是影像授权公司Corbis。20世纪90年代初期，Corbis 就已从17座以上的博物馆取得将馆藏作品以数字型态复制的权利。现今在某些情况下，如不付费给 Corbis， 就无法使用这些影像。寇尔说：“相同的情形也可能发生在数字文献上。”

第二种模式是，相似的国家和民营数据库和平共存。寇尔举“人类基因体计划”为例，该计划最后有由政府经费资助的科学家完成的免费版本，也有由赛雷拉基因公司完成的民间版本。

第三种模式取决于伙伴关系。民营公司提供取阅数字书籍的商业渠道，公共实体则提供作为研究之用的免费渠道。“网络档案室”和隶属亚马逊网络书店的Alexa（亚雷萨）公司的合作方式即为一例；Alexa 公司依浏览率为网站排名，6个月后，Alexa再将资料捐给网络档案室以保存作为非商业用途。

那么，哪一种模式和Google的计划最接近呢？华曲斯基说：“我们试着尽可能保持开放态度。”