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Bottom line: Western efforts are based on propreitary response
Although it sounds good, the google effort is a proprietary one and will be organized as such. The attack on Western virtues should address this issue. The project in France is based on learned principles and academics. The Google effort is indicactive of the hustle, bustle, lets get some good PR for our company type of deal, which in the end I can assure you will fall short of greatness. As a historian, librarian, and researcher I greet Google's effort with a suspicious eye. Seems like a few burnt out academics,and a whole lot of tech people will just start throwing up whatever won't be copywrited and call it a miracle of modern technology and go to town on a big PR campaign for this new "public" company Google. I rarely agree with the French, but in this case I don't think it's a Chirac vs. Bush type of angst, I think it stems from the fact that the people at the French library know that this effort will undermine actual academic efforts to reposit material for use. Google represents a fast food approach, and all should be wary of its credibility as it goes forward.
-Walrus
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