Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Google's book plan drawing ire: Yet another publishing industry group is marshalling support to put a crimp into Google's plans to make the contents of many books available via its search engine. [...]Hull said that the TAA is seeking a meeting with the presidents of the universities involved in the Google project to convince those leaders that it is in their interest to help better protect copyrights. He said that the project could also have a detrimental effect on institutions of higher learning by cutting into the money universities generate by publishing text books and selling the volumes to students.(Via CNET News.com.) "The money universities generate by publishing textbooks and selling the volumes to students"? How's that for an egregious conflict of interest? Textbooks should be chosen according to their fit to the class, and their cost for already financially overextended students, not according to whether they will generate kickbacks to the school. Yes, kickbacks. Publishers are increasingly offering financial incentives to professors and schools that adopt their textbooks. Universities are supposed to operate in the public interest. That's why they are exempted from taxes. The public interest is not served well by overpriced textbooks. It would be much better served by having universities support low-cost or, even better, open access electronic textbooks. 4:09:32 PM