One thing I love about driving in my car alone is listening to talk radio on NPR. Last week, I caught a chunk of RadioOpenSource when the focus of the show was Google's Book Search. Here's a link to the show which you can download.
I have noticed the new link at the bottom of each google search page to “Try your search again on Google Book Search” but hadn't really paid much attention to it. Listening to this program was fascinating because it was almost a debate on ethics - bringing Google together with librarians to discuss.
Google's project is to digitize books in a way that they will be searchable on the web. There are plenty that are already digitized and searchable and available to Google. But they are also working on a big library project - first attacking public domain books, but with a bigger goal of somehow talking publishers into letting them at copyrighted material. Oh, the authors are in an uproar! To the tune of a lawsuit.
In addition to the obvious legal questions, the show addressed the ethical and even social problems raised by Google's project. Does it put Google in “ownership” of all of this information or just of too much? Will people stop going to libraries? Will people lose a love of books? (Certainly not book lovers! I always have a novel by my bedside and read almost every night before going to sleep.) Will people's assumption that everything is on google prevent them from researching properly? Will google replace student's education of how to research? (This coming from a girl who can say “back in the old days, there was no internet when we had to write reports and papers in high school or college”) Will they stop on only the first page of google results?
This is definitely a cultural turning point. Will our own kids someday say “back in the olden days, we had to go to these places called libraries to learn stuff.”
edit: I had to add this very funny NY Times commentary on “Google in 2084” - by way of Derek Hatchard.