Google Wins Appeals Court Approval of Book-Scanning Project • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Wins Appeals Court Approval of Book-Scanning Project

#11

Post by dublinben » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 4:23 PM UTC

planfaster wrote: post #3

I hope this is not too off-topic but since we are talking about book-scanning, how would I go about scanning my own books for private use? For instance, if I have a bunch of books about drawing, I'd like to scan them all so that I later group all of the figure drawing pages in one folder, all the gesture drawing pages on another, etc, so they can be more easily used (and more useful) as reference. Does anyone here re…

There's an entire community dedicated to making inexpensive devices to scan books.[0] You will probably also have access to a commercial grade book scanner at any large library.

[0] http://www.diybookscanner.org/

Re: Google Wins Appeals Court Approval of Book-Scanning Project

#12

Post by jessriedel » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 4:25 PM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #2

It's good that this news report includes a citation to the case decision at the end of the article. That citation is Authors Guild v. Google Inc., 13-4829, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (Manhattan) The ruling applies, of course, only to the United States, and only if it is not reversed by the United States Supreme Court. But I think the argument that Google's use of the book content is not market-destr…

It has to be that these sorts of lawsuits are supported by a small minority of authors, right? It's crazy. Who has ever planned to buy a book and thought "hey, I'll just use the Google Book Search to read through it"? I've never heard of 99% of the books that turn up on these searches, and I have ended up buying at least 2 or 3 of them.

Re: Google Wins Appeals Court Approval of Book-Scanning Project

#13

Post by ChuckMcM » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 4:26 PM UTC

Ok this is pretty cool, I've been waiting for the 2nd Circuit to decide this. Now to see if the Supreme Court will take it up.

I believe that this would also clear up a service that scans your books and sends you the digitized version. That would seem to be fair use of my own library as well. I spent about $1200 getting roughly a 1/3 of the volumes I've collected over the years digitized at 600 DPI so that I could have them all available on my iPad for reference.

Re: Google Wins Appeals Court Approval of Book-Scanning Project

#14

Post by intopieces » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 4:31 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #8

baldfat wrote: post #4

As a former librarian I say YES! The typical librarian actually doesn't fight for the access of materials but fights to enforce copy right stricter than the copy right law even calls for. At my college I took down the sign that said "No Copying of Books" at the photo copier and I put in place the actual copy right law. I can't tell you how many visiting librarians were "shocked" I did that. Well we also allowed bottl…

First, thanks for being a librarian. Second, I don't think traditional librarians know how quickly the end is coming. Libraries will still exist of course, possibly as makerspaces, possibly as community centers, but with collections like "Library Genesis" [+] and storage continually to plummet in price, in the next 5 years entire libraries could be carried in your pocket. EDIT: I'm not saying librarians aren't necess…

I agree with you about the end, but not that traditional librarians aren't aware of it. Because of their tenuous funding source, librarians have become masters at adaptation. They meet constantly to re-evaluate their goals and their place in the community. They are vitally important, especially to those with limited access to technology (homeless, working poor). I do see them evolving further as community centers and that's a good thing.

Re: Google Wins Appeals Court Approval of Book-Scanning Project

#15

Post by baldfat » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 4:37 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #8

baldfat wrote: post #4

As a former librarian I say YES! The typical librarian actually doesn't fight for the access of materials but fights to enforce copy right stricter than the copy right law even calls for. At my college I took down the sign that said "No Copying of Books" at the photo copier and I put in place the actual copy right law. I can't tell you how many visiting librarians were "shocked" I did that. Well we also allowed bottl…

First, thanks for being a librarian. Second, I don't think traditional librarians know how quickly the end is coming. Libraries will still exist of course, possibly as makerspaces, possibly as community centers, but with collections like "Library Genesis" [+] and storage continually to plummet in price, in the next 5 years entire libraries could be carried in your pocket. EDIT: I'm not saying librarians aren't necess…

In my opinions librarians are actually needed more now!

Yes we have a fire hose of content and people need people like librarians to help utilize that fire hose more.

When I left (I quit the job) being a librarian in 2008 more than 50% of librarians had lost their jobs in the next 2 years. Most people who handle budgets have your same idea.

My school district of 19,000 students had ONE librarian for all the elementary schools. CRAZY

Re: Google Wins Appeals Court Approval of Book-Scanning Project

#16

Post by mangeletti » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 4:48 PM UTC

baldfat wrote: post #4

As a former librarian I say YES! The typical librarian actually doesn't fight for the access of materials but fights to enforce copy right stricter than the copy right law even calls for. At my college I took down the sign that said "No Copying of Books" at the photo copier and I put in place the actual copy right law. I can't tell you how many visiting librarians were "shocked" I did that. Well we also allowed bottl…

This is awesome. I can remember clearly, in junior high school, the librarian informing us that we were only allowed to copy six pages of a book for homework assignments. I don't really have a strong opinion on much of this (one way or the other), because I'm not well enough informed on the topic, but I remember feeling weird about it, becaus the library aid made us feel like criminals for wanting to copy more than 6 pages. The library at that particular school was pretty substandard anyway.

I'm not so sure I won't be aging myself by saying this, but I feel very nostalgic about libraries, and the thought of them becoming obsolete saddens me, not so much because I can't imagine a future with mostly digital books, but because I always felt at home at the library (and not in the "there's a man sleeping under the 600s shelf" sort of way). I always felt a sort of wonderment at the library, and that others were there for the same reason added to that. I didn't visit the public library for school reasons, typically. Instead, I just sort of explored. I have always been a slow reader, so finding the exact right thing to read next was a bigger deal for me than just reading book after book.

I also volunteered as library aid in 12th grade, which was fun.

Are there others that feel / felt the same about libraries?

Re: Google Wins Appeals Court Approval of Book-Scanning Project

#17

Post by cbr » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 4:50 PM UTC

baldfat wrote: post #15

toomuchtodo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, thanks for being a librarian. Second, I don't think traditional librarians know how quickly the end is coming. Libraries will still exist of course, possibly as makerspaces, possibly as community centers, but with collections like "Library Genesis" [+] and storage continually to plummet in price, in the next 5 years entire libraries could be carried in your pocket. EDIT: I'm not saying librarians aren't necess…

In my opinions librarians are actually needed more now! Yes we have a fire hose of content and people need people like librarians to help utilize that fire hose more. When I left (I quit the job) being a librarian in 2008 more than 50% of librarians had lost their jobs in the next 2 years. Most people who handle budgets have your same idea. My school district of 19,000 students had ONE librarian for all the elementar…

> Yes we have a fire hose of content and people need people > like librarians to help utilize that fire hose more.

Or we need to get better at automating the process of helping people find what they're looking for. That is, keep improving search engines.

Re: Google Wins Appeals Court Approval of Book-Scanning Project

#18

Post by Sanddancer » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 4:58 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #8

baldfat wrote: post #4

As a former librarian I say YES! The typical librarian actually doesn't fight for the access of materials but fights to enforce copy right stricter than the copy right law even calls for. At my college I took down the sign that said "No Copying of Books" at the photo copier and I put in place the actual copy right law. I can't tell you how many visiting librarians were "shocked" I did that. Well we also allowed bottl…

First, thanks for being a librarian. Second, I don't think traditional librarians know how quickly the end is coming. Libraries will still exist of course, possibly as makerspaces, possibly as community centers, but with collections like "Library Genesis" [+] and storage continually to plummet in price, in the next 5 years entire libraries could be carried in your pocket. EDIT: I'm not saying librarians aren't necess…

A librarian's always been an adviser and guide. Curation is a huge part of what a librarian's task is. Librarians are also detectives, tasked with finding those obscure resources where you know of them, but not where to find them. There are times, for example, where one needs a specific edition of a book. A librarian would have a much better grasp of how to find that than a search engine.

We've got the resources now to put libraries in our pocket. Phones, tablets, etc can do so easily. At the same time, a library is more than the sum of its books, and needs more than just metadata to properly operate.

Re: Google Wins Appeals Court Approval of Book-Scanning Project

#19

Post by cmsmith » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 4:59 PM UTC

planfaster wrote: post #3

I hope this is not too off-topic but since we are talking about book-scanning, how would I go about scanning my own books for private use? For instance, if I have a bunch of books about drawing, I'd like to scan them all so that I later group all of the figure drawing pages in one folder, all the gesture drawing pages on another, etc, so they can be more easily used (and more useful) as reference. Does anyone here re…

I have done one or two books using the glass plate + camera method: camera mounted on a tripod, book opened up halfway, and a glass plate to hold the pages flat while taking the pictures. I think my workflow was 5ish seconds per page.

If I were to do more and had the space, I would have gone the diybookscanner.org route to improve the quality and processing rate. At one point I belonged to a hackerspace in Oakland that had one available.

Post-processing workflow was much easier, and involved using scantailor (awesome free software to batch align, crop, white balance, etc the pages) and then Acrobat for OCR.

Re: Google Wins Appeals Court Approval of Book-Scanning Project

#20

Post by baldfat » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 5:05 PM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #10

baldfat wrote: post #4

As a former librarian I say YES! The typical librarian actually doesn't fight for the access of materials but fights to enforce copy right stricter than the copy right law even calls for. At my college I took down the sign that said "No Copying of Books" at the photo copier and I put in place the actual copy right law. I can't tell you how many visiting librarians were "shocked" I did that. Well we also allowed bottl…

Based on your experience, do you think this kind of attitude just typical of the sorts of folks who tend to be librarians, or is there some top-down reason for it?

One word - Lawsuit

Every time any of this is spoken it is in terms of job security. If the place you are employed at is sued you could then easily lose your job. It happens not a lot but enough to scare every librarian. When I proposed we leave the $4 a book library management system to a Open Source Evergreen the words spoken behind the companies was hysterically wrong but enough to scare anyone from using them. Back then Open Source meant evil and bad to librarians due to companies selling them goods spreading FUD.