We contacted Gary Price, whose knowledge and experience in library matters enlightened the topic greatly. He commented to some extent on the matter on his Resource Shelf blog, after a brief chat with WebProNews.

In brief, there are many digitization projects in place. No one organization should be able to control the playing field. Some efforts predate Google and the OCA’s forays into scanning.

Gary expressed surprise that the Times made no mention of Project Gutenberg, which has been digitizing content since 1971 (36 years for those scoring at home.) He also mentioned the Online Books Page at the University of Pennsylvania, listing over 25,000 books.

“It’s one thing to scan books, but another to make them ‘findable’,” said Gary. Digitization is just one point in the process. Organization and quick access pose significant challenges, too.

Even with its resources and skill, Google can’t become a chokepoint for public domain works, due to the duplication of efforts that have taken place. Gary offered World Public Library, an aggregator of 500,000 works, as another example of why fears of Google Book Search could be greatly exaggerated.

Before our recent phone chat, I hadn’t heard of either Librarians’ Internet Index or Intute. It’s a great big Internet, and finding new resources like these usually means you need to get a tip from someone like Gary.

Despite his prolific speaking schedule, Gary can’t talk to everyone. Those who know him probably don’t believe that statement, but I have it on good authority from the newlywed Mr. Price that this is the case.

Here’s why he likes LII and Intute. They both have standards for reviewing and cataloging content in a manner that the likes of Jimmy Wales can only fantasize about for Wikipedia. Wales has the advantage of scale, but the vetting process doesn’t match that scope.

LII calls their index "Websites You Can Trust." In the Computers category of Web Design and Management, government sites appear listed with other useful commercial and non-commercial sites. Visitors can drill down by subtopics, and group and sort results for viewing.

Intute offers an intriguing service called the Virtual Training Suite. These free tutorials have been arranged by professions, and are oriented toward helping people within a profession use the Internet more effectively.

It’s always fascinating to see how well resources online can be provided to others. Wikipedia has its value, and in some areas its volunteer contributors have done a very good job. But the necessary corrections for Gary’s Wikipedia entry have not been made (he isn’t a stuntman). A vetted resource wouldn’t have the world believing Ask’s director of online information resources spent some time on the set of The Italian Job.

Library Journal has an interview with Gary, where he explains that basically, he thought there should be someone at search engine companies to interact with the library/research communities, so Ask said, “Why don’t you do it?” Gary’s new job is to do outreach/inreach, help Ask learn from libraries their skills in organizing information, and work on product development.

Barry Schwartz says Ask has basically replaced the figurehead/cartoon of Jeeves with the real deal. I like that concept, and agree with it (so much so that I’ve put my Photoshopping lack-of-skills to task).

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Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.

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