Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge: A View from Europe

Jean-Noël Jeanneney

Sep 2008 · University of Chicago Press

About this ebook

The recent announcement that Google will digitize the holdings of several major libraries sent shock waves through the book industry and academe. Google presented this digital repository as a first step towards a long-dreamed-of universal library, but skeptics were quick to raise a number of concerns about the potential for copyright infringement and unanticipated effects on the business of research and publishing.

Jean-Noël Jeanneney, president of France’s Bibliothèque Nationale, here takes aim at what he sees as a far more troubling aspect of Google’s Library Project: its potential to misrepresent—and even damage—the world’s cultural heritage. In this impassioned work, Jeanneney argues that Google’s unsystematic digitization of books from a few partner libraries and its reliance on works written mostly in English constitute acts of selection that can only extend the dominance of American culture abroad. This danger is made evident by a Google book search the author discusses here—one run on Hugo, Cervantes, Dante, and Goethe that resulted in just one non-English edition, and a German translation of Hugo at that. An archive that can so easily slight the masters of European literature—and whose development is driven by commercial interests—cannot provide the foundation for a universal library.

As a leading librarian, Jeanneney remains enthusiastic about the archival potential of the Web. But he argues that the short-term thinking characterized by Google’s digital repository must be countered by long-term planning on the part of cultural and governmental institutions worldwide—a serious effort to create a truly comprehensive library, one based on the politics of inclusion and multiculturalism.

Ratings and reviews

I strongly doubt. The Now Europe is not what it was a century ago and it is no longer the leader of the world, both economically and culturally this book is a reflection of the European desperation... this is a not impassioned book damaging world cultural heritage or the dominance of american culture? who cares? what is important is that google book search offers something you can not simply refuse to take: knowledge, power, culture, and progress. I like Google Book Search Those people are ridiculous in going against this magnificant project. They are bubbling, but what they have done? Nothing but talking. As an ordinary citizen of the world, we need desperately an access to things whichh moneny can't simply buy.

About the author

Jean-Noël Jeanneney was the president of the Bibliothèque nationale de France from 2002 until 2007. Teresa Lavender Fagan has translated more than a dozen books for the University of Chicago Press.