Emory Free Culture

Emore Free Culture member Andrew Swerlick recently had the following editorial published inThe Emory Wheel.

Creating our Library of Alexandria: Google Print falls under ‘fair use’
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November 01, 2005

Almost everyone has heard of the legendary Great Library of Alexandria. In its time, it was the repository for almost all of the knowledge in the ancient world. What’s especially interesting about this library is the way in which it gained its impressive collection. All visitors to the city of Alexandria were required to relinquish any scrolls or books they had with them. Scribes copied the works and returned a copy to the owners. As the library’s collection grew, more philosophers, scientists and authors came to visit Alexandria, leading to more books, the process cycling back on itself. Alexandria soon became the center of technology, literature and science in the ancient world, producing works like Euclid’s Geometry and the invention of Archimedes’ Screw.

Now in the modern period one group is trying to create its own Library of Alexandria. The Google Print project is trying to digitize and organize the world’s information so it is easily searchable through Google’s Web site. To this end, Google Print is building a collection in a way similar to the librarians of ancient Alexandria. Google has started making digital copies of the books in Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, New York Public and University of Michigan libraries.

However, there is one problem that Google faces: modern copyright law. Some publishers are not happy with the fact that Google has not asked for permission to copy many of their books. At first glance it would seem that Google doesn’t have the law on its side. However, there is a caveat to copyright that puts Google firmly in the right. That caveat is the idea of fair use — the idea that it is okay to copy works for certain reasons including, but not limited to, criticism, commentary, teaching, scholarship and news reporting. Over time, four basic factors have evolved to determine if something is fair use:

1. The purpose of the copy. This concerns whether the copying is for nonprofit, educational or commercial purposes.

2. The nature of the copyrighted work. This is to allow the copying of mostly factual works, i.e., the telephone book or specific facts contained in a biography or research paper.

3. The portion copied compared to the work as whole. This allows quoting.

4. The effect of the copy on the value of the original work. This concerns whether or not the ability to sell or distribute the original work is harmed by the copy.

Of these four, the one important to the issue of Google Print is the last one. Although Google will be making full copies of every book for indexing purposes, in the case of copyrighted books, only excerpts will be available to those searching on the site. These excerpts will be accompanied by links to libraries or bookstores where the full text is available. Google Print users will not be able to use the Google Web site as a replacement for these books, but instead as a guide to finding them. That means everyone benefits, people can find the books they want, and publishers can find those who want their books.

This is especially important for researchers. Imagine a student in Africa being able to find the title of every book ever published on the subject of the ancient Chinese Empire, including rare and out-of-print editions, and being shown links to where he can acquire them. Think about how easy research becomes for even the most esoteric topics when the world’s knowledge is available at the press of a key.

Everyone knows the story of the eventual fate of the ancient Library of Alexandria — destroyed by a raging fire. Let’s hope our modern Alexandria doesn’t go down in the flames of legal battle before it even gets its start.

-Andrew Swerlick, Sophomore, Emory Free Culture