Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Eis o artigo de Nicholas Carr sobre as vantagens e os possíveis problemas que a utilização da Internet coloca e que tanta discussão tem provocado. Vale a pena lê-lo até ao fim. 

"(...) media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski."

Aliança para combater biblioteca virtual da Google

no Diário de Notícias

Projecto gera discórdia entre as maiores empresas do mercado digital. Coligação de gigantes tecnológicos contra a maior biblioteca virtual do mundo é uma hipótese. Em disputa está o sector literário, um dos mais apetecíveis e rentáveis negócios 'online'.

A Amazon, Microsoft e Yahoo vão assinar um acordo apelidado de Open Book Alliance e organizado pela Internet Archive. Esta estratégia visa combater a Google, que pretende criar a maior biblioteca virtual do mundo com o serviço Google Books. Brewster Kahle, fundadora do Internet Archive, é peremptória: "A Google está a tentar monopolizar o sistema de biblioteca online, através da exploração de uma única fonte de todos os títulos publicados".

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O Google e o futuro dos livros

O autor do artigo da edição de 12-15 de Fevereiro da New York Review of Books propõe uma reflexão sobre o futuro dos livros, das bibliotecas e do modo como acedemos à informação e construímos conhecimento.

[imagem retirada da página da Heritage Materials Imaging Facility]

Google & the Future of Books

por Robert Darnton

How can we navigate through the information landscape that is only beginning to come into view? The question is more urgent than ever following the recent settlement between Google and the authors and publishers who were suing it for alleged breach of copyright. For the last four years, Google has been digitizing millions of books, including many covered by copyright, from the collections of major research libraries, and making the texts searchable online. The authors and publishers objected that digitizing constituted a violation of their copyrights. After lengthy negotiations, the plaintiffs and Google agreed on a settlement, which will have a profound effect on the way books reach readers for the foreseeable future. What will that future be?

No one knows, because the settlement is so complex that it is difficult to perceive the legal and economic contours in the new lay of the land. But those of us who are responsible for research libraries have a clear view of a common goal: we want to open up our collections and make them available to readers everywhere. How to get there? The only workable tactic may be vigilance: see as far ahead as you can; and while you keep your eye on the road, remember to look in the rearview mirror.

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