Page 178 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Google Book Search | 1

see also Alternative Media in the United States; Blogosphere; Communication
Rights in a Global Context; Conglomeration and Media Monopolies; Inde-
pendent Cinema; Internet and Its Radical Potential; Journalists in Peril; Mi-
nority Media Ownership; Parachute Journalism; Pirate Radio; Public Access
Television; World Cinema.

Further reading: Atton, Chris. Alternative Media. London: Sage, 2001; Couldry, Nick, and
James Curran, eds. Contesting Media Power: Alternative Media in a Networked World. Lan-
ham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003; Downing, John D. H. Radical Media: Rebellious
Communication and Social Movements. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001; Geerts, Alfonso, V.
van Oeyen, and C. Villamayor, eds. La Práctica Inspira: La Radio Popular y Comunitaria
Frente al Nuevo Siglo. Quito: Associación Latinoamericana de Educación Radiofónica,
2004; Opel, Andy, and Donnalynn Pompper, eds. Representing Resistance: Media, Civil
Disobedience, and the Global Justice Movement. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004; Rennie, Ellie.
Community Media: A Global Introduction. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006;
Rodríguez, Clemencia. Fissures in the Mediascape. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2001.

John D.H. Downing

google Book searCh

In October 2004, Google announced a partnership with five powerhouse re-
search libraries to scan millions of books into a company database and make them
accessible via an online search engine. While the press regarding Google Book
Search has been dominated by the discussion over copyright, there are several
other questions raised by this massive scan of information. Namely, why did
Google and the libraries enter this partnership? How will this partnership affect
the future of libraries? And what kind of data can a company gather about what we
search for and read?

google Book searCh statistiCs

5—libraries initial participating in the Google Library Project (Harvard, Stanford, Oxford,
the University of Michigan, and the New York Public Library).
32 million—estimated number of published books to be scanned.
7.8 million—volumes in the University of Michigan library. Google has agreed to scan
them all.
$150 million to $1 billion—estimated cost of the library scanning project (according to
different sources).
$100,000—cost of one book-scanning machine.
$32 billion—estimated annual revenues, U.S. domestic book industry.
$80 billion—estimated annual revenues, worldwide book industry.
3%—percentage of total spending on higher education that is directed to academic and
research libraries.
2%—percentage of municipal budgets dedicated to libraries in 1950.
0.5%—percentage of municipal budgets dedicated to libraries in 2005.