For what it's worth, here's what I think. . .

So after all the articles, all the debate, all the impassioned appeals, what should be the "official" library stance on the Google Books project? There IS an "official" position at the ALA website that includes the new amended agreement with the University of Michigan, but I have purposely not read it yet. I want to formulate my own opinion first and then see where I meet with and/or diverge from "the company line." Frankly, it is hard not to be swayed by Robert Darnton's eloquent and articulate criticisms of the Google Books project, but, here too, I will try to formulate my own well-reasoned opinionsbased on the research I have conducted. In doing so, I think I probably am more in favor of the Google Books project than many in our field.

I think we need to be careful about Utopian fantasies of universal libraries and free access to the world's information when it comes in the form of a commercial enterprise. I don't buy into the thought that big business = bad business, but I also don't want to have illusions about a primary motivator of for-profit entities which is namely to make money. To paraphrase one of Darnton's queries, while Google's track record is good so far, what happens if present ownership changes or profitability wins out over accessibility? The success of Google Books rests on the benevolence of the Google conglomerate. To date, Google has been a responsible neighbor and good faith player, but there must exist a healthy distrust of a large entity when nothing less than a monopoly of the world's knowledge hangs in the balance. Admittedly Google did not set out to create a monopoly on all orphan works, items in the public domain or digitized library objects. By virtue of their success, they just have no legitimate competitors and they should not be punished because they are good at what they do. However, safeguards must be put into place to ensure that access is not overly restricted or controlled.

I also diverge slightly from Darnton in my thinking that free market principles have the potential to help keep Google in check and prevent them from charging exorbitant fees. If the rates become too high to access Google Books, people will forgo the instantaneous convenience and return to more conventional means of accessing the information – by this, I mean they may order it from Amazon or download an e-book through a library or any other of a myriad of ways that people access information today. Just because Google digitizes a work, does not mean that it ceases to exist in other formats or in other places. I also think that the legal wrangling and deal making will continue for a long time and I think information consumers will benefit.

Overall I think that as long as copyright holders are given fair compensation for their intellectual property and a method of arbitration on access fees is put into place, Google Books has the potential to be one the greatest forces for scholarship the world has ever seen. Combined with projects which get computer and Internet access to developing nations, Google Books could be a great leveler on the playing field of intellectual freedom and free exchange of ideas ushering in a new period of Enlightenment and scholarship. In my opinion, that's an idea libraries can get excited about.

In general, everyone agrees that the Google Books project has the potential to be a tool for great good. The world's citizenry stands to gain tremendously by having access to a searchable database of a universal canon of popular and scholarly literature and the opportunity for preservation is inestimable. Of course, the devil is in the details.