Google and ProQuest
September 15, 2008
The Library Journal story “ProQuest and Google Strike Newspaper Digitization Deal” puts a “chrome” finish on a David and Goliath story. Oh, maybe that is ProQuest and Googzilla? In the story my mother told me, David used a sling to foil to big, dumb Goliath. With some physics, Goliath ended up dead. You need to read Josh Hadro’s version of this tale here.
The angle is that Google will pay UMI–er, ProQuest–to digitize. For me the most important paragraph in the story was:
The deal leaves significant room for ProQuest to differentiate its Historical Newspapers offering, which contain such publications as the New York Times and Chicago Tribune, as a premium product in terms of added editorial effort and the human intervention required to make its selectively scanned materials more discoverable and useful to expert researchers. In contrast to scanning by Google, editors hired by ProQuest check headlines, first paragraphs, captions, and more to achieve their claim of “99.95 percent accuracy.” In addition, metadata is added along with tags describing whether the scanned content is an article, opinion piece, editorial cartoon, etc. Finally, ProQuest stresses that the agreement does not affect long-term preservation plans for the microfilm collection. “Microfilm will always be the preservation medium…”
Three thoughts:
- Commercial databases are starting to face rough water. Google, though not problem free, faces rough water with a nuclear powered stealth war craft. UMI–er, ProQuest–has a birch bark canoe.
- Once the data are in the maw of the GOOG, what’s the outlook for UMI–er, ProQuest? In my opinion, this is a short term play with the odds in the mid and long term favoring Google.
- Will the Cambridge Scientific financial wizards be able to float the Dialog Information Services boat, breathe life into library sales, and make the “microfilm will always be the preservation medium” a categorical affirmative? In my opinion, the GOOG has its snoot in the commercial database business and will disrupt it sending incumbent leaders into a tizzy.
Yes, and the point about David and Goliath. I think Goliath wins this one. Agree? Disagree? Help me learn. Just bring facts to the party.
Stephen Arnold, September 15, 2008
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