[新鮮書市]Google未來圖書:Google版電子書

當你需要查找資料的時候，下意識的動作是打開IE瀏覽器，登陸Google，還是匆匆出門，去圖書館找個究竟?
作爲全球知名的搜索網絡，Google正計劃將牛津大學、密歇根大學、斯坦福大學以及紐約公共圖書館等幾家頂級研究性圖書館的館藏著作轉化成爲電子文件，放到網上讓人們免費搜索閱讀。在很多人看來，Google的這個計劃是踏出了建立全球虛擬圖書館的第一。Google圖書和解協議主要用於處理過去和絕版的書籍。昨晚在山景城的計算機歷史博物館參加一場討論會時，Google Books的項目主管丹·克蘭西（Dan Clancy）首次清晰地描述了該項目的發展計劃。此外，Google希望建立起面向未絕版書籍的電子書店。在Google的設想中，出版商將與公司進行合作，將它們所有的書籍通過Google和傳統零售書店兩種途徑發售。

Google's Vision for the Future of Google Books: EBook Store, Google Editions

Google's vision for Google Books obviously goes far beyond the controversial Google Book Search settlement with the Authors Guild and the AAP. The Google Books settlement mostly dealt with the past and out-of-print books. In a talk at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View （山景城的計算機歷史博物館）last night, however, Google Books' engineering director Dan Clancy（項目主管丹·克蘭西） laid out a clearer vision of the company's plans for Google Books for the first time. Among other things, the company hopes to create its own electronic bookstore for in-print books. In Google's vision, publishers would partner with the company and offer all of their books through Google and through traditional retailers.

Google's eBook Store in the Cloud（雲間的的谷歌圖書書店）

In his remarks, Clancy stressed that he doesn't believe that brick and mortar book retailers will die anytime soon. He did, however, argue that book retailers will have to adapt to the changing environment and start to offer digital copies of books in addition to regular print copies. In Clancy's vision, Google will "syndicate for our partner program all of the books we sell that are new, so that any bookstore can sell a Google edition and find a way that people can buy them in brick and mortar stores as well."

Clancy did stress, however, that books will always be stored in the cloud, so we are not quite sure if this means that users will basically only buy access rights to a book but won't be able to store a copy on their devices for offline reading. As most book publishers are still extremely nervous about the potential for piracy, cloud storage might indeed be a way to alleviate some of these fears for Google.

Google Editions: Readable on Any Device（谷歌圖書：任何設備均可以閱讀）

Clancy also stressed that these "Google editions" should be readable on any device, including laptops, phones, and dedicated eReaders. In addition, Google wants to work with any publisher that is willing to work with Google to offer books in the Google cloud.

Of course, Google's relationship with publishers is rather rocky, so it remains to be seen how many publishers would really want to sign on to this program. At the same time, though, most publishers also aren't exactly happy with Amazon either. What is clear, though, is that Google plans to create its own cloud-based alternative to eBooks stores from established retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Keke View：據《紐約時報》近日所做的一些調查顯示，很多學者、圖書管理員都對Google的這一計劃表示了贊同。加利福尼亞大學的信息學教授保羅-達蓋德稱讚說，這一計劃的推行，將以最快的速度打破世界頂級圖書館之間的禁忌之牆。紐約城市大學研究生中心的人文學院院長大衛-納索也表示，通過關鍵詞來搜索書籍以及研究文獻，不僅可以縮短學術研究成果傳播的時間、減少傳播過程中所花費的金錢，同時以一種十分便捷的方式拓寬了科學家們研究的視野。