I could go into a big, long, and drawn out post why Google’s hegemonic vision of the internet is bad for people. Then again, NPR beat me to the point and had a nice piece last month. If you have a chance, give the radio piece a listen and you’ll have a feel for the type of stuff that I like to study.

All Things Considered: April 22, 2008 · “Technology has made it possible to make books accessible to anyone, anywhere. But in the effort to digitize the world’s books, there’s a fight brewing over who should control tomorrow’s virtual libraries, and how open they should be. Some libraries are choosing to pay to digitize their collections rather than accept offers from Google and Microsoft to do it for free.”

Some Libraries Shun Google In Book Battle

Then again, there are public rivals out there. Really, really cool rivals out there. An example? Check out Open Library. We touched on this tonight as part of my last class, but I have a feeling tools like this are only starting to emerge for the general public to use.

www.openlibrary.org