Future reading: My analysis

The essay main idea is about archives and how it all started and what is coming next in the future. Google book search seems to be a very ambitious project knowing that the New York Library alone has more than a million books: “Among them is Kazin’s beloved New York Public Library, where more than a million books are being scanned”. It is a great idea but it will require a lot of efforts and a lot of time to be completed. If Google really wants to ““build a comprehensive index of all the books in the world”, Google will have to hire the best archivists of the world and also recognize that foreign cultures may also have different ways of archiving books and texts. Also, with the help of Microsoft and Amazon, Google has plans of constructing a “digitized knowledge and the end of the book as we know it”. This again is great, but what about poor people who do not have access to computers in Africa, Latin America or Asia. What about the elderly persons who never got a chance to learn basic computer skills or the electrician who does not know how to use a computer? I think that the “end of the book” would be very damaging for certain categories of people in a long run and maybe Google should ponder a little more on this. On the other hand, digitized books would help save trees and nature as a whole. It could also help librarians in terms of archiving information. The essay talks about information overflow and how Fremont Rider, “a librarian at Wesleyan University, prophesied that material was multiplying so quickly that it would soon overflow even the biggest sets of stacks”. I think this is true, not everything can be put on stacks and books are heavy and take space. For that, I think that digitized books could help in terms of giving more room for Libraries. Now, if books disappear, Librarians may have to go to. This would mean less jobs available for them or maybe, they would have to undergo a special training aimed at helping them master digitized records. I guess only the future will help us determine the the direction of these new creations if they were to exist. I just hope that it will benefit everybody, not just one class of population leaving the rest of the world uninformed about these new tools.  Google should think about the Copyright aspect because that could create a lot of legal issues. At the same time, a lot of work. Just imagine having to ask copyrights for more than a million books! It is completely crazy. How are they going to bend the law in their favor. What about copyrights in nation like Kenya or Costa Rica for instance. The law is not the same everywhere and that Google should take into account. Google’s dreams are big, but these dreams could truly be rewarding if their aim was to benefit all.