I'm occasionally (okay: once) accused of using guest bloggers at times when my own work constricts my blog-writing time (how could you ever think such a thing, Rick?), but today's guest blogger has nothing to do with my deadlines.

I've been watching the stormclouds gather in publishing circles over Google's recent announcement that its book search tool will let people print classics as well as other books no longer under copyright. (Up until now, onscreen delivery has been the only method for accessing said books.)

Google's book search service is part of the Books Library, a wider project to put books online in a searchable format; working with Google are Oxford University, Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, the University of California, and the New York Public Library.

Project Gutenberg is already copying out-of-copyright books as text files, and has been doing for some time, without the current uproar; moreover, according to a report by BBC News, other companies are already doing what Google proposes to do – it's just the name that has writers vociferious in their opposition.Google's book searching device does not access books still under copyright. How much clearer can that be?

But there's still a great deal of panic, and as it happens, my colleague Albert Ervine gave an answer to it in an online forum that is far better than anything I'd be able to write. So I am quoting him, with permission, here:

Somehow this sounds like the reaction of the Irishman who panicked when he heard the world was going to end in ten million years and was relieved to find that it was really a hundred million. For Google's actions to present a problem, several things are necessary:

1. Write a classic, not just a best-seller. Some classics -- like "Walden"-- started life on the remaindered shelf. Some best-sellers, like most of the Victorian era "three deckers," died with their era. A "classic," for lack of a better definition, is a book that is required reading in a literature course. Used copies can usually be identified by copious underlining on the first few pages. They are in good supply because few ever read them after the end of the semester. The accompanying Cliff Notes are usually pretty tattered, though.

2. Assuming you have written a classic -- and that anyone outside of academia has noticed -- the copyright is good for fifty years or so after your death. If your opus is also a continuing bestseller, the royalties might help your great-grandchildren get through college, something most of us have difficulty providing for our immediate children. Anything beyond that verges on providing eternal security, a condition more properly addressed by religion than copyright. Just how greedy can you get if you're not a member of ASCAP?

3. Dr. Johnson said, "No one but a blockhead ever wrote except for money," a sentiment suitable for lexicographers and other "harmless drudges," but it's hard to believe that Johnson didn't enjoy the recognition his dictionary brought him. It may even have sold a few copies of "Rasselas," though it's hard to see what else would have. However, most of us blockheads would be happy enough to know that someone was still reading and enjoying our stories next year, let alone next century. The money is nice, or would be, but with inflation and all...

In any case, as someone pointed out, the Gutenberg Project has been making yesteryear's classics available online for as long as there has been a line to put them on. In addition, they offer free DVDs with the complete texts of several thousand books, including quite a few best-selling non-classics like those of Edgar Rice Burroughs and "Victor Appleton." Well worth the price.

There are also several sites that turn selected texts into more readable format than plain text, and others dedicated to single authors like John Bunyan or specialized groups like the Puritans or the "Church Fathers." The site for Victorian Women Writers has also embalmed a large number of the "three deckers" for those with antiquarian interests.

All in all, I think we should worry less about getting into "Who's Who" than about winding up in "Who's he?"

Thanks today to Albert Ervine, who is way... beyond the elements of style!


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Jeannette Cézanne
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