Google Books, originally named Google Print, was introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2004. Just a few months later, on January 22, 2005, it came under attack as a threat to global cultural diversity in an editorial in the French newspaper, Le Monde. The editorial, entitled “When Google Challenges Europe,” was penned by Jean-Noël Jeanneney, who at the time was the President of the National Library of France. He expanded his views into a book entitled, “When Google defies Europe: A Plea to Wake-Up.” Jeanneney’s writing sparked a global controversy about possible unintended cultural side-effects of the Google Book’s project. Jeanneney raises the following concerns:
Google Book Search will be skewed towards English language volumes
Jeanneney’s most famous concern about the Google Books project is that the books that are scanned will be skewed towards American and British literature. As Google Books becomes a more popular research tool internationally, the reading of books from other cultures and languages will suffer, because Google Books’ search results will be skewed against them. Several responses can be made against this argument. Andrew Herkovic, who works for Stanford University’s library, points out that the libraries with which Google has partnered represent major research institutions, which have enormously diverse collections. Another argument against Jeanneney’s criticism is the fact that Google has partnered with libraries in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, and Japan. However, Google’s pursuit of foreign libraries may itself be a response to Jeanneney’s criticism. Another argument against the idea that Google Books will reduce global cultural diversity is that the process may one day soon be integrated with Google’s auto-translation, which could greatly expand an individual’s access to untranslated works in foreign languages.
Books decontextualized from their culture and a culture-free ranking system
Jeanneney also argues that Google’s search strategy for keywords in books decontextualizes the works in a way that is culturally damaging. This argument, however, does not really explain how Google Book Search is any worse than existing card catalogues in decontextualizing works. According to Google, the purpose of the project is to help people find books, not to help people access excerpts from books they don’t intend to read, so Jeanneney’s concern stems from a different interpretation of how the application will be used. Another concern Jeanneney raises is that the search strategy Google employs ranks the books in a way contrary to how they would be ranked by scholars from the cultures in which they were written. The counter to this argument is that the people, not scholars, should decide |