Google's Digital Library Failed -- Can Academics Succeed?

Robert Darnton, director of the Harvard University Library, recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times hailng the Google Books court decision, writing, "only a digital public library will provide readers with what they require to face the challenges of the 21st century -- a vast collection of resources that can be tapped, free of charge, by anyone, anywhere, at any time."

A digital public library faces as many or more hurdles as a digital private library, though--as Darnton is first to admit, problems "legal, financial, technological, political." The main question that remains then, is this: Can Darnton et al. make good on their claims that they can have what the Times calls a "working prototype" inside of a year and a half? Worrying signs abound: The digital public library has "no formal structure other than a steering committee." There is far from unanimity of vision: "Everyone who is at the table has a different idea of audience, scope, content and governance," one of the people involved told the Times. (Though Darnton told us last fall that at a meeting, thankfully, "everyone checked their egos at the door.") And what does it say about your project if one of its members, Stanford librarian Michael Keller, is telling reporters that the project is "coming late to the party" and has "no practical plan for getting it started”? Academia is famously slow; businesses are famously fast. The lofty motives driving Darnton and his fellow advocates for a digital public library ought to animate them with the same passion that profit animates the folks at Google. It would be wonderful to be proven wrong about the differences between commerce and academia on this count.