This is not the Google we knew

Librarians Accuse Google of Using and Discarding Them

Is Google casting aside the library community? That’s the recent conclusion of some librarians. The giant technology company once courted librarians to back its controversial project that digitizes books from academic libraries and makes all or parts of the texts available online. Now it seems Google no longer needs them, the librarians say.

Steven M. Cohen, a senior librarian at Law Library Management Inc., notes on his blog that Google last updated its “Librarian Central” blog a year ago. And he and Roy Tennant, a librarian with the Online Computer Library Center, say that, atypically, Google wasn’t present at the American Library Association’s annual conference last month, even though it was held in Anaheim, Calif. “only one short plane ride away from the Googleplex” also in California, writes Mr. Tennant.

“So, Google will continue to use librarians, scan their books, profit from it, and then leave us in the information dust to rot like an old microfilm machine,” writes Mr. Cohen. “It’s sad really. But then again, we fell for it.”