Will Googling Books Be Page in History or Footnote?
Posted on: Friday, 11 May 2007, 03:00 CDT Google me Ishmael. Someone somewhere in the world is searching for the opening lines of Melville’s “Moby Dick,” or maybe a phrase from Toni Morrison’s “Beloved,” an anecdote from a Bart Starr biography, a speech by Churchill or by the evil genius in a James Bond novel. Our searcher is in a hurry, and not inclined to rise from the computer. To avoid such an inconvenience, there is the promise (or the hype, depending on your point of view) of Google Book Search, the Internet search giant’s quest to digitize all of the world’s books and make them available online in snippets, pages, chapters, even entire works. The massive project, conceivably an enterprise without end, has its supporters and its critics, one of whom, Siva Vaidhyanathan, will be discussing the book search for a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee lecture series beginning 7 p.m. Saturday at Hide House, 2625 S. Greeley St. in the Bay View neighborhood. “There is a lot of hyperbole abo
